Man by the specialty of his creation, being the subject of Godhead counsel—"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"—and as having life breathed into his nostrils by the Lord God, was thereby placed in immediate relationship to the Creator. All responsibility is founded upon an established relationship, hence where the relationship does not exist, neither does the responsibility which is based upon and is necessarily attached to the relationship. I have not the responsibility of a father resting upon me, if I am not one. Responsibility flows from a known relationship. The "brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed" (2 Peter 2:12), manifest the divine intentions respecting the lower creation; the animals answer the end of their being and existence when ministering to the need and pleasure of man, but that does not involve responsibility on their part, as they have not been set in moral relationship either towards God or man.