Now one of Israel’s circumstances was Canaan. The Canaanites had settled laws, and to some extent those laws must have embodied the results of experience of what was suitable in Canaan. Israel might have arrived at the same results, by the same way. It is, however, surely difficult to deny that they availed themselves of Canaanite experience and adopted Canaanite laws. If they did so at all, it is mere quibbling to deny Canaanite influence. Even if they had so framed their laws as to avoid a likeness to Canaanite laws altogether, that would still show Canaanite influence. That they did neither, but achieved a totally distinct type of law, can alone show complete independence. That they did not adopt all Canaanite customs, but made a selection, shows the best sort of independence. That there was always a strong tendency to adopt too much that was Canaanite, is the lament of their best teachers. These also protested against much that was Israelite custom. But it is not certain that these protests were always against what had been Canaanite. It may sometimes have been more primitive custom, properly more Israelite. For, at any rate, regarded from the point of civilization, we must admit that the Canaanites were more advanced. It might now be supposed that the differences of opinion which have been called forth by comparisons of the Hebrew and Babylonian legislations resolve themselves into this: that one opinion emphasizes the independence, the other dwells upon the influence. That is partly true, but does not cover all the divergence. For when similarities are accounted for by a common Semitic origin, or an _Urgesetz_, or as the natural outcome of human intellect acting similarly in similar circumstances, not all the factors of the problem are taken into account. These might be adequate solutions if Israel had been separated from all other Semitic races and entered an empty Canaan. They might even account for the similarities, such as they are, between the laws of the Babylonians and the Aztecs. Men everywhere do reach the invention of pottery, but man anywhere will use the pot he finds ready made.