The teachings of Jesus were addressed to the hearts and intelligences of men, and therefore the grade of sonship of which he spoke has reference to the expression of Infinite Being in the human heart and intellect. But this, again, may be conceived of in infinite degrees; in some men there is the bare potentiality of sonship entirely undeveloped as yet, in others the beginnings of its development, in others a fuller development, and so on, until we can suppose some supreme instance in which the absolutely perfect reproduction of the universal has been attained. Each of these stages constitutes a fuller and fuller expression of sonship, until the supreme development reaches a point at which it can be described only as the perfect image of "the Father"; and this is the logical result of a process of steady growth from an inward principle of Life which constitutes the identity of each individual. It is thus a necessary inference from Jesus' own explanation of "the Father" as Spirit or Infinite Being that "the Son" is the Scriptural phrase for the reproduction of Infinite Being in the individual, contemplated in that stage at which the individual does in some measure begin to recognise his identity with his originating source, or, at any rate, where he has capacity for such a recognition, even though the actual recognition may not yet have taken place. It is very remarkable that, thus defining "the Son" on the direct statement of Jesus himself, we arrive exactly at the definition of Spirit as "that power which knows itself." In the capacity for thus recognising its identity of nature with "the Father" is it that the potential fact of sonship consists, for the prodigal son was still a son even before he began to realise his relation to his "Father" in actual fact. It is the dawning of this recognition that constitutes the spiritual "babe," or infant son; and by degrees this consciousness grows till he attains the full estate of spiritual manhood. This recognition by the individual of his own identity with Universal Spirit is precisely what forms the basis of the New Thought; and thus at the outset the two systems radiate from a common centre.