4p62sc.md (1311B)
1 If we could possess an adequate knowledge of the 2 duration of things, and could determine by reason their periods 3 of existence, we should contemplate things future with the same 4 emotion as things present; and the mind would desire as though 5 it were present the good which it conceived as future; 6 consequently it would necessarily neglect a lesser good in the 7 present for the sake of a greater good in the future, and would 8 in no wise desire that which is good in the present but a source 9 of evil in the future, as we shall presently show. However, we 10 can have but a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of 11 things (II. xxxi.); and the periods of their existence (II. 12 xliv. note.) we can only determine by imagination, which is not 13 so powerfully affected by the future as by the present. Hence 14 such true knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely 15 abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order 16 of things and the connection of causes, with a view to 17 determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather 18 imaginary than real. Therefore it is nothing wonderful, if the 19 desire arising from such knowledge of good and evil, in so far as 20 it looks on into the future, be more readily checked than the 21 desire of things which are agreeable at the present time. (Cf. 22 IV. xvi.) 23 24