Claim. Each created being’s individual image is not an image separate from its universal image (Sungsang/Hyungsang and yang/yin) but is the universal image specialized — those universal attributes manifested in a unique, particular way in that individual.
Elaboration. Lee articulates the relation between universal and individual image as one of individuation rather than addition (C. Individual Image of the Individual Truth Being). The universal image (common to all beings of a kind) is composed of sungsang and hyungsang and yang/yin; the individual image is precisely ‘the manifestation of these attributes in a different and unique way in each individual being.’
For humans this means: personality (Sungsang) and physical appearance (Hyungsang) differ from individual to individual; yang and yin in both Sungsang and Hyungsang are individualized — joy (yang emotion) is expressed differently in different people, the nose (a yang body part) differs in size and shape, the ear canal (a yin body part) differs likewise.
Lee then introduces an important distinction between the human case and the microscopic/species cases. For molecules, atoms, elementary particles, the individual image equals the species’ specific difference — every water molecule has the same shape and chemistry. Same for mineral elements: each instance is interchangeable. For plants and animals, the individual image is the species-characteristic (the Rose of Sharon’s characteristics become the individual image of all Roses of Sharon). Only in human beings does the individual image vary from person to person — making each human individually conceived by God.
This underwrites the unique value and irreplaceability of each human person within UT’s ontology, while still letting non-human nature be treated taxonomically. It harmonizes with the earlier claim that Adam and Eve were conceived with concrete individual images, not as abstractions. The principle also explains why species are stable (their ‘individual image’ just is their specific difference) while individual humans are not interchangeable substitutes for one another.
See also. ut-individual-image-vs-environment, individual-image-as-uniqueness-from-inner-hyungsang, ut-three-kinds-of-subject-object-relations