"The soul--the mind of man--the immortal spirit--where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so; the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine. I know better. * * * We say that God himself is a self-existent Being. Who told you so? It is correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner, upon the same principles? * * * Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. * * * There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-eternal with our Father in heaven. * * * The spirit of man is not a created being; it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity." Man, then, in the Prophet's philosophy, is not a created, but a self-existent entity, one of the eternal things; not created, really uncreatable, as also indestructible. Not of earth origin, but existing in heavens without number, brother to all Intelligences--brother to the Christ with the rest. "I was in the beginning with the Father," our Prophet represents the Christ as saying--"I was in the beginning with the Father. * * * Ye [the brethren present when the revelation was given] were also in the beginning with the Father, that which is spirit. * * * Man [the race] was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence was not created or made, neither indeed can be."