25. Man, Woman and Child from the Point of View of the Occult

Of the physical and etheric body, we see with the ordinary senses alone the physical body; but if we turn our attention inwards to the supersensible side, the etheric body, we find the opposite sex. When a person observes life from the perspective of the sexes, when a man or a woman experiences life and tries to understand it from that point of view, but spiritual science then provides him with such insights as the opposite natures of the sexes of the physical and etheric bodies, then the scales fall from the eyes of man; only then does it become clear to him when he looks at life as a man, that although external nature stimulates him to male deeds, he harmonizes these male qualities, balances them with other, almost female qualities. Likewise, women show us a whole range of male traits. We then find that there is nothing that we could ascribe to only the man or only the woman, whether as a virtue or a defect, that is tied only to one sex.