As regards the male sex and the female sex it is not so that a male being will continue being a male being for all eternity, just as a female being will not of course continue being a female being for all eternity either. In its innermost principle each being is double-poled. This state is in reality the being's primary, cosmic state. When the being is described as "one-poled", it does not mean that is does not contain within itself both pole principles, but on the contrary that the talent for one of the poles is more or less latent. In some beings, as previously explained, the feminine pole has stagnated. And in other beings the masculine pole has stagnated. The two beings appear therefore as male and female respectively. These two principles in the being are subject to an organic function that causes the being to appear alternately as male and female. Between these states the being lives in its primary state as a double-poled being on the spiritual plane. After this double-poled state on the spiritual plane it appears again in a one-poled state. If, in its one-poled state prior to its double-poled state as a finished human being, it was a masculine being, it will now, after this state, appear as a feminine being. And if it was a feminine being prior to its double-poled state as a finished human being it will now be a masculine being after its double-poled state. Through this transformation of the being's poles light and darkness are created. It may seem strange that a masculine being, that is a male being, can be transformed into a feminine or female being, just as a female being in the same way can be transformed into a male being. But here one must remember that the cosmic analysis of these beings is that they each contain both of the two poles: the masculine pole and the feminine pole, regardless of whether they appear as a male being or a female being at the moment. A being that appears as a male in its present epoch appears in this state only because its feminine pole is latent or at a minimum. The being is therefore not a purely masculine being. Because of the presence of its feminine pole, it is also a feminine being, though only very slightly, even if its masculine pole is by far the leading or dominant one in its manifestation. The same is of course true of the being that appears as a female being in its present epoch. Here the masculine pole is latent or at a minimum, and the feminine pole is by far the leading or dominant one in the being's manifestation and experience of life. As previously mentioned the innermost or cosmic analysis of the living being is thus that it is double-poled. The fact that this double-poled state manifests itself in the physical world mainly as the one-poled state, as an alternating male and female state, certainly does not change its innermost analysis as the double-poled state. Thus it becomes evident here that the double-poled state is the primary cosmic analysis of the living being.