If animals could reason, they ought to improve in their condition.  Men become more civilized day by day.  They invent many things that were unknown to their forefathers.  One man can improve upon the works of another, etc.  But, we never see anything of this kind in the actions of animals.  The same kind of birds, for instance, build the same kind of nests, generation after generation, without ever making change or improvement in them.  When man teaches an animal any action, it cannot teach the same to its young.  It is clear, therefore, that animals cannot reason.

Though man has the gift of reason by which he can learn a great deal, he cannot learn all through his reason; for there are many things that God Himself must teach him.  When God teaches, we call the truths He makes known to us Revelation.  How could man ever know about the Trinity through his reason alone, when, after God has made known to him that It exists, he cannot understand it?  It is the same for all the other mysteries.

(4).  My soul has “free will.”  This is another grand gift of God, by which I am able to do or not do a thing, just as I please.  I can even sin and refuse to obey God.  God Himself—­while He leaves me my free will—­could not oblige me to do anything, unless I wished to do it; neither could the devil.  I am free therefore, and I may use this great gift either to benefit or injure myself.  If I were not free I would not deserve reward or punishment for my actions, for no one is or should be punished for doing what he cannot help.  God would not punish us for sin if we were not free to commit or avoid it.  I turn this freedom to my benefit if I do what God wishes when I could do the opposite; for He will be more pleased with my conduct, and grant a greater reward than He would bestow if I obeyed simply because obliged to do so.  Animals have no free will.  If, for example, they suffer from hunger and you place food before them, they will eat; but man can starve, if he wills to do so, with a feast before him.  For the same reason man can endure more fatigue than any other animal of the same bodily strength.  In traveling, for instance, animals give up when exhausted, but man may be dying as he walks, and still, by his strong will-power, force his wearied limbs to move.  But you will say, did not the lions in the den into which Daniel was cast because he would not act against his conscience, obey the wicked king and offend God—­as we read in Holy Scripture (Dan. 6:16)—­refrain from eating him, even when they were starving with hunger?  Yes; but they did not do so of themselves, but by the power of God preventing them:  and that is why the delivery of Daniel from their mouths was a miracle.  It is clear, because the same lions immediately tore in pieces Daniel’s enemies when they were cast into the den.

6 Q. Why did God make you?  A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.