As to the original similarity of Hebraic and other Canaanite religions cp. E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. §§ 309-11 (i, 372-76); Kuenen, i, 223; Wellhausen, Israel, p. 440; Winckler, Gesch. Israels, passim; Réville, Prolég. de l'hist. des relig. 1881, p. 85. "Before being monotheistic, Israel was simply monolatrous, and even that only in its religious élite" (Réville). "Their [the Canaanites'] worship was the same in principle as that of Israel, but it had a higher organization" (Menzies, Hist. of Rel. p. 179; cp. Tiele, Outlines, pp. 85-89). On the side of the traditional view, Mr. Lang, while sharply challenging most of the propositions of the higher critics, affirms that "we know that Israel had, in an early age, the conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, at an early age, the conception was contaminated and anthropomorphized; and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption, while always retaining its original ethical aspect and sanction" (Making of Religion, p. 295). If "we know" this, the discussion is at an end. But Mr. Lang's sole documentary basis for the assertion is just the fabricated record, reluctantly abandoned by theological scholars as such. When this is challenged, Mr. Lang falls back on the position that such low races as the Australians and Fuegians have a "moral Supreme Being," and that therefore Israel "must" have had one (p. 309). It will be found, however, that the ethic of these races is perfectly primitive, on Mr. Lang's own showing, and that his estimate is a misinterpretation. As to their Supreme Beings, it might suffice to compare Mr. Lang's Making of Religion, chs. ix, xii, with his earlier Myth, Ritual, and Religion, i, 168, 335; ii, 6, etc.; but, as we have seen (above, p. 93), the Supreme Being of the Australians eludes the closest search in a number of tribes; and the "moral" factor is equally intangible. Mr. Lang in his later reasoning has merely added the ambiguous and misleading epithet "Supreme," stressing it indefinitely, to the ordinary God-idea of the lower races. (Cp. Cox, Mythol. of Aryan Races, ed. 1882, p. 155; and K. O. Müller, Introd. to Sci. Mythol. Eng. tr. p. 184.)