"The idea prevails in general, I believe, in the religious world where the Gospel truth is misunderstood, that man is the only being on the earth that has what is called a 'soul' or a spirit. We know this is not the case, for the Lord has said that not only has man a spirit, and is thereby a living soul, but likewise the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, have spirits, and hence are living souls. But this does not make them kinsmen to the sons and daughters of God. They are our Father's creations, not his offspring, and that is the great difference between man and beast. It would be a very strange world where animals were not found. If, after the resurrection of the dead, we discovered that man was the only living creature with immortality, we would certainly consider it a very strange world. Yet the idea does prevail that man has a spirit and the animals have not, and this is the great thing that distinguished man from all other beings. The fish, the fowl, the beasts of the field, lived before they were placed naturally in this earth, and so did the plants that are upon the face of the earth. No doubt the spirits that possess the bodies of the animals are in the similitude of their bodies. In other words the bodies of animals conform to the spirits which possess them, and which existed before they were placed on the earth. The Lord has made nothing to be destroyed. He has not [built] to tear down, but what is done is done with the idea of permanency."