94. VI. THAT LOVE OF THE SEX BELONGS TO THE EXTERNAL OR NATURAL MAN, AND HENCE IS COMMON TO EVERY ANIMAL. Every man is born corporeal and becomes more and more interiorly natural; then, according as he loves intelligence, he becomes rational; and afterwards, if he loves wisdom, he becomes spiritual; what that wisdom is by which man becomes spiritual will be told later (n. 130). Now, as man progresses from science to intelligence and from intelligence to wisdom, so also does his mind change its form; for it is more and more opened and more closely conjoins itself with heaven and through heaven with the Lord. Hence the man becomes a greater lover of truth and more intent on the good of life. If, therefore, he stops at the first threshold of his progress towards wisdom, the form of his mind remains natural; and this receives the influx of the universal sphere--the sphere of the marriage of good and truth--no otherwise than as do the lower subjects of the animal kingdom which are called beasts and birds. And since these are merely natural, he becomes like them, and so loves the sex in the same way they do. This is what is meant by the statement that love of the sex belongs to the external or natural man and hence is common to every animal.