"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing. And beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so." (Gen. i:24.) Therefore each kind, whether beast, bird or fish, as well as man, existed before it came to occupy a physical being, otherwise how could each have been created after its own kind? The spirit and the body must be the soul, as enunciated by the Lord in a revelation to the prophet Joseph Smith. (Doctrine and Covenants, sec. 88, verse 15.) "And the spirit and the body is the soul of man." Otherwise there might be an eternal fullness when the spirit and the body are separated. When Jesus was crucified He went, as stated by Peter, to preach to the spirits in prison, and did not enter into the fullness of His Father's glory until He ascended after His resurrection. This was the pattern to all men. Without the union of the spirit and the body there is not a fullness of glory. As the spirit exists between death and the resurrection, so the spirit existed before the birth of the mortal body. God is the God and Father of the spirits of all flesh, as stated by Moses: "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?" (Num. xvi:22.) "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation." (Num. xxvii:16.) This declaration is corroborated by the apostle Paul in writing to the Hebrews: "Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?" We associate in this life with our natural fathers; we see them as they are. They teach, guide and direct us by virtue of their fatherhood and their advanced experience, which qualify them to teach us and direct our footsteps in the way we should walk. So in our pre-existence did we mingle with our heavenly Father and His children, our brother and sister spirits. We knew God and partook of His influence and power. We were agents to ourselves, and when propositions affecting man's eternal welfare were placed before us, we were left to choose for ourselves and be responsible for our own course. Thus Lucifer rebelled, and drew one-third part of the heavenly host away. They were cast out, and denied a body. So keenly have they felt this curse that they seek to possess the bodies of the human family. When Jesus cast the evil spirits from the men coming out of the tombs, so eager were they to possess some physical tabernacle, that they besought Him that they might enter the herd of swine. The request was granted, and the swine, possessed of evil spirits, ran down violently into the sea.