ix.) an emotion towards a thing contingent, which we know does not exist in the present, is fainter, other conditions being equal, than an emotion towards a thing past.

Q.E.D.
PROP.XIV.

A true knowledge of good and evil cannot check any emotion by virtue of being true, but only in so far as it is considered as an emotion.
Proof .-- An emotion is an idea, whereby the mind affirms of its body a greater or less force of existing than before (by the general Definition of the Emotions); therefore it has no positive quality, which can be destroyed by the presence of what is true; consequently the knowledge of good and evil cannot, by virtue of being true, restrain any emotion.

But, in so far as such knowledge is an emotion (IV.

viii.) if it have more strength for restraining emotion, it will to that extent be able to restrain the given emotion.