quires grace for more things than
before sin; but he does not need grace more; forasmuch as man even
before sin required grace to obtain eternal life, which is the chief
reason for the need of grace. But after sin man required grace also
for the remission of sin, and for the support of his weakness.

Reply Obj. 2: Difficulty and struggle belong to the degree of merit
according to the proportionate degree of the work done, as above
explained. It is also a sign of the will's promptitude striving after
what is difficult to itself: and the promptitude of the will is
caused by the intensity of charity. Yet it may happen that a person
performs an easy deed with as prompt a will as another performs an
arduous deed; because he is ready to do even what may be difficult to
him. But the actual difficulty, by its penal character, enables the
deed to satisfy for sin.

Reply Obj. 3: The first man would not have gained merit in resisting
temptation, according to the opinion of those who say that he did not
possess grace; even as now there is no merit to those who have not
grace. But in this point there is a difference, inasmuch as in the
primitive state there was no interior impulse to evil, as in our
present state. Hence man was more able then than now to resist
temptation even without grace.
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QUESTION 96

OF THE MASTERSHIP BELONGING TO MAN IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE
(In Four Articles)

We next consider the mastership which belonged to man in the state of
innocence. Under this head there are four points of inquiry:

(1) Whether man in the state of innocence was master over the animals?

(2) Whether he was master over all creatures?

(3) Whether in the state of innocence all men were equal?

(4) Whether in that state man would have been master over men?
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FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 96, Art. 1]

Whether Adam in the State of Innocence Had Mastership Over the
Animals?

Objection 1: It would seem that in the state of innocence Adam had
no mastership over the animals. For Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ix,
14), that the animals were brought to Adam, under the direction of
the angels, to receive their names from him. But the angels need not
have intervened thus, if man himself were master over the animals.
Therefore in the state of innocence man had no mastership of the
animals.

Obj. 2: Further, it is unfitting that elements hostile to one another
should be brought under the mastersh