"The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 281 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The individuality of man, therefore, emanates from God and expresses the nature of God. It is distinct, immortal, beautiful, free, and strong, governed and maintained by its divine Principle, Love. This individuality of man is the reflection of Soul, spiritual not corporeal. Its character, form, and expression are divinely determined.
Imitating the creative power of God, mortal mind claims to produce its own expression, with a material mind and body, and calls it a human personality. This mind alleges to have endowed matter with life, substance, and intelligence, properties which matter is incapable of possessing. It claims to confer on a mortal the power to be a creator, and it declares that his personality possesses a will, intellect, opinion, and ambition different from and often in conflict with those of other personalities. All these claims, however, are found to be without foundation in Christian Science, which reveals that man is made not in the image and likeness of matter, but of God, Spirit.
The tendency of men to mistake human personality for man's selfhood may be seen in the account of David's selection as the future king of Israel, as given in the sixteenth chapter of I Samuel. When the Lord told the prophet Samuel to anoint one of the sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite as the new king, the father introduced to him all the grown sons. On seeing the first-born, who was a splendid example of physical manhood, even the prophet was deceived by the testimony of the physical senses when he believed him to be the chosen one. Wisdom quickly rebuked his error, however, and bade him lift his thought above corporeality, admonishing him to "look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; ... for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."
