l Other Creatures?

Objection 1: It would seem that in the state of innocence man would
not have had mastership over all other creatures. For an angel
naturally has a greater power than man. But, as Augustine says (De
Trin. iii, 8), "corporeal matter would not have obeyed even the holy
angels." Much less therefore would it have obeyed man in the state
of innocence.

Obj. 2: Further, the only powers of the soul existing in plants are
nutritive, augmentative, and generative. Now these do not naturally
obey reason; as we can see in the case of any one man. Therefore,
since it is by his reason that man is competent to have mastership,
it seems that in the state of innocence man had no dominion over
plants.

Obj. 3: Further, whosoever is master of a thing, can change it. But
man could not have changed the course of the heavenly bodies; for
this belongs to God alone, as Dionysius says (Ep. ad Polycarp. vii).
Therefore man had no dominion over them.

_On the contrary,_ It is written (Gen. 1:26): "That he may have
dominion over . . . every creature."

_I answer that,_ Man in a certain sense contains all things; and so
according as he is master of what is within himself, in the same way
he can have mastership over other things. Now we may consider four
things in man: his _reason,_ which makes him like to the angels; his
_sensitive powers,_ whereby he is like the animals; his _natural
forces,_ which liken him to the plants; and _the body itself,_ wherein
he is like to inanimate things. Now in man reason has the position of
a master and not of a subject. Wherefore man had no mastership over
the angels in the primitive state; so when we read "all creatures," we
must understand the creatures which are not made to God's image. Over
the sensitive powers, as the irascible and concupiscible, which obey
reason in some degree, the soul has mastership by commanding. So in
the state of innocence man had mastership over the animals by
commanding them. But of the natural powers and the body itself man is
master not by commanding, but by using them. Thus also in the state of
innocence man's mastership over plants and inanimate things consisted
not in commanding or in changing them, but in making use of them
without hindrance.

The answers to the objections appear from the above.
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THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 96, Art. 3]

Whether Men Were Equal in the State of Innocence?

Objection 1: It would seem that in the state