An _individual_ is not absolutely indivisible, but that which can not be divided without losing its name and distinctive qualities. Individuality, like personal identity, belongs properly to intelligences. Consciousness reveals it to us that no being can be put in our place nor confounded with us, nor we with others. I am one and indivisible. You can not amputate any of the faculties of the mind. It is a mind which no one dissects or divides. We are assured that we are the offspring of God. Paul says this truth had been promulgated by one of the Athenian poets, and it was so correct that Heaven's seal was placed upon it. Being the offspring of God we are essentially like our Great Father Spirit, for it is one of the laws of God that the child or descendant shall always be like its progenitor; not like him in body, for God is a spirit. A spirit hath not flesh and bone. We are therefore like Him in spirit. Being the offspring of the divine intelligence declares the nature of that intelligence, just as the stream declares the nature of the water in the fountain which feeds it. As the fountain is the antecedent of the stream, so God is the antecedent of life and intelligence, from whom all spirits came, and to whom all spirits must return.
Our studies in respect of mind are wonderfully simplified when we recollect that in ourselves we see all other men, spirit or mind being in its essence and attributes essentially the same; but the fountain is always greater than the stream, so God is more wise and powerful than any of his offspring. But as each perfect sunbeam, however small or weak, has all the essential properties of light, and each grain of pure silver all the properties of that metal, so mind, as the living offspring of the divine mind, is in the "likeness and image of God." This branch of study becomes remarkably simple when we reflect that in ourselves we see all men and women, angels and demons, and even God himself. The whole universe of mind is reflected in that inner-man mirror which we call _ourself_. We have guarded this subject by the language, _the essential attributes of mind_. By this qualifier we wish it understood that mind, like body, has its accidental or acquired qualities. Vice, virtue, folly, wisdom, malignity and benevolence are not essential to mind, but like the accidents of matter known as roughness or smoothness, softness, hardness, blackness, etc., are merely qualities or attributes of its conduct. Vice is vicious action and virtue is virtuous action. But action arises from will and will from thought. All minds are free agents, being vicious or virtuous from their own choice. There is as much piety, morality or immorality in the flowing of the Wabash river as there is in involuntary action. So ability to choose is the great factor of morality, virtue, immorality, and vice.