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aroused to lust, whereas a human is kindled to love by sight alone. This is why the proverb says: “A woman’s face is her selling point.” Yet, because some young men occasionally surpass girls in the beauty of their features and the gifts of form, men are sometimes misled by them—though others write that “male love” is a species of madness by which men are sometimes seized, just as they are by other afflictions.

We shall move from this to another problem: namely, why men are more inclined toward lust in winter and women more so in summer. It should be understood that women are colder in comparison to men; therefore, when they are chilled in winter, they are not so easily released into luxury, since Venus delights in heat and not in cold. Men, however, being warmer, are more ready for intercourse even in the depths of winter; otherwise, in summer, they are rendered weaker by being dissolved by excessive heat. Finally, they investigate why pale women are more lustful than those with a ruddy complexion, and thin ones more than the stout.

They proclaim that this arises because those women are more prone to softness and lavish luxury who abound in greater and sharper heat—such as the pale, the thin, and those of a darkish complexion. Thus, being imbued with a certain saltiness, they demand moistening. Stout and ruddy women, on the other hand, abound with more copious moisture and consequently a more diluted feminine seed, and so they do not burn with such desire.

Regarding knowledge, they ask why learned men distinguished by virtues are so few in comparison to others. Some maintain that this is because many impediments present themselves during learning—especially illnesses, which often carry off students—or because men suited for study are forced by necessity to devote themselves to the mechanical arts. Protagoras reminds us of this; he was a distinguished philosopher, yet as a youth, to earn a living, he used to carry wood from the forests to the city to sell. According to Aulus Gellius, he was recognized there by Democritus, brought into the city, and educated by him; he emerged as such a great philosopher that Plato later held him in high esteem. Others, however, would have it that this stems from the fact that our age lacks patrons like Maecenas, for as the poet wrote: "Let there be Maecenases, and trust me, Virgils will not be lacking."

Nor should we dismiss the response of those who claim the number of those endowed with virtue is smaller because virtue is a habit acquired by choice, not by force, and virtue consists in the mean, whose extremes are occupied by vices. Since the extremes of virtue are vices, these will be more numerous, while virtue is spoken of as only one. Thus it happens that someone can perform evil in many ways, while he can manage good actions in only one way. They also ask why men of great intellect and mind are so poorly suited for practical actions. The reason is that those endowed with a sharp intellect contemplate assiduously and direct all the powers of the soul toward meditation; conversely, those devoted to labor draw all the powers of even the intellectual part toward sensory functions. Finally, they inquire why men are born with a more successful and fertile intellect than women. The common answer is that the sharpness of the intellect is blunted by the humidity of the woman, preventing her from exercising it—unless we wish to sing with a certain learned man: “Why is the prudence of wives less, and that of husbands greater? Eve was the daughter of a rib, not the head.”

It remains for us to examine the problems relating to human afflictions. First, they investigate why a pregnant woman suffers greater bodily changes in comparison to female animals. They answer that in idleness, excremental superfluities increase, from which various illnesses later arise; a pregnant woman is very idle, whereas the females of beasts exercise themselves even while pregnant. Next, they ask why men suffering from gout are so prone to lust. Some respond that this arises from habit, since they establish gout to be the daughter of Venus and Bacchus; or because those oppressed by this disease are forced to lie upon their backs, and because of this position, more material flows to the genital parts. Perhaps it is better to assert that those with gout abound in a certain sharp and thin humor, which tends to make men prone to Venus. They also ask why those with gout can be liberated by no remedy. We can answer that the material cause of this affliction is a mixture of hot and cold matter; hence, complicated indications for cu-