[4771]book came first to my hands after the third edition) to certain atomi in the seed, “such as are very spermatic and full of seed.”  I find the same in Aristot. sect. 4. prob. 17. si non secernatur semen, cessare tentigines non possunt, as Gaustavinius his commentator translates it:  for which cause these young men that be strong set, of able bodies, are so subject to it.  Hercules de Saxonia hath the same words in effect.  But most part I say, such as are aptest to love that are young and lusty, live at ease, stall-fed, free from cares, like cattle in a rank pasture, idle and solitary persons, they must needs hirquitullire, as Guastavinius recites out of Censorinus.

[4772] “Mens erit apta capi tum quum laetissima rerum. 
        Ut seges in pingui luxuriabit humo.”

       “The mind is apt to lust, and hot or cold,
        As corn luxuriates in a better mould.”

The place itself makes much wherein we live, the clime, air, and discipline if they concur.  In our Misnia, saith Galen, near to Pergamus, thou shalt scarce find an adulterer, but many at Rome, by reason of the delights of the seat.  It was that plenty of all things, which made [4773]Corinth so infamous of old, and the opportunity of the place to entertain those foreign comers; every day strangers came in, at each gate, from all quarters.  In that one temple of Venus a thousand whores did prostitute themselves, as Strabo writes, besides Lais and the rest of better note:  all nations resorted thither, as to a school of Venus.  Your hot and southern countries are prone to lust, and far more incontinent than those that live in the north, as Bodine discourseth at large, Method, hist. cap. 5. Molles Asiatici, so are Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, even all that latitude; and in those tracts, such as are more fruitful, plentiful, and delicious, as Valence in Spain, Capua in Italy, domicilium luxus Tully terms it, and (which Hannibal’s soldiers can witness) Canopus in Egypt, Sybaris, Phoeacia, Baiae, [4774]Cyprus, Lampsacus.  In [4775]Naples the fruit of the soil and pleasant air enervate their bodies, and alter constitutions:  insomuch that Florus calls it Certamen Bacchi et Veneris, but [4776]Foliot admires it.  In Italy and Spain they have their stews in every great city, as in Rome, Venice, Florence, wherein, some say, dwell ninety thousand inhabitants, of which ten thousand are courtesans; and yet for all this, every gentleman almost hath a peculiar mistress; fornications, adulteries, are nowhere so common:  urbs est jam tota lupanar; how should a man live honest amongst so many provocations? now if vigour of youth, greatness, liberty I mean, and that impunity of sin which grandees take unto themselves in this kind shall meet, what a gap must it needs open to all manner of vice, with what fury will it rage?  For, as Maximus Tyrius the Platonist observes, libido consequuta quum fuerit materiam