Why do some individuals express an abundance of intelligence while others are deficient in this quality? This is a question that has puzzled people for ever so long. Businessmen and educators are constantly trying out new tests designed to measure the intellectual capacities of their employees and students. Yet the composition, source, and substance of intelligence continue to elude mankind. And they will continue to do so as long as men believe that the basis of intelligence is matter.
To the question, "What is intelligence?" Mrs. Eddy starts her revolutionary answer with this sentence (Science and Health, p. 469): "Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence." Intelligence that is omnipresence cannot be a subsidiary of matter; the physical brain, though linked to a highly complicated nervous system, can neither contain nor limit it. It is not in one place more than in another, does not change with years, or vary with generations. Hence human heredity, so called, cannot be and is not a determining factor.
Omnipotence is obviously unlimited in power; it is irrepressible and active everywhere at all times. Intelligence, therefore, never stops exercising its full potentiality, nor does it fail to achieve it because of either age or lack of schooling. Illustrating this, Jesus astounded his learned elders with his knowledge of the Scriptures when he was still but a child, and, as a man, he disarmed the worldly Pilate with his potent wisdom. Omniscience contains within its oneness the understanding of all true being, leaving no room for stupidity, ignorance, lapse of memory, or limitations inherent in time and space.
