"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.
"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
"All the sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
"The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."
This high position is in entire harmony with man's innate consciousness of his superior powers, and of his nobler spiritual nature, and of his rightful dominion over all the other material creations. Man is a person, a thinking intelligent being, and is conscious of his personality, and from his lofty height he calls all else the lower and the inferior creatures. Wherever man is found over the whole earth, of whatever faith or grade of civilization, he claims this universal dominion.
Man was commanded to subdue the earth and bring it into subjection as his servant and he is conscious of his right to use all things to promote his comfort, convenience and welfare. Anything he can make of service to himself he has a right to appropriate.
A tree is a thing which he may prepare for his own purposes, for fuel, for tools, or for a dwelling, as he pleases.
Isaiah ridiculed the idolater in his time, who made an idol of wood and worshiped it, while with another part of the same tree he built a fire and warmed himself. A part he served and a part served him. The whole tree was subject to him; in itself it had no rights.
Rights belong to persons, and not to things, and personality cannot be transferred to a thing. If there is no personal owner the question of rights is never raised. The tree, or any thing whatever, has no rights in the matter. Rights belong to the owner, the person, not to the thing he owns.
The game in the mountain forests and the fish in the rivers are things with no owner and whosoever will may take and use them.