What these contentions leave out of account is the existence of ready-made laws. This cannot be denied. The Canaanites were there, by all admitted. They must have had laws and customs. No one surely denies that. What proof could ever be produced that Israel did not adopt such as were convenient? In the selections and rejections which the Israelites made they showed whatever independence we may give them credit for. That they could have invented the same themselves, or obtained them elsewhere, is perfectly irrelevant. To assert that they did invent them, not adopt them, is to describe the same fact in different words. It looks very like perversity. We may pretend to have invented something exactly like what some one else has done before, but the Patent Laws usually prevent our getting much profit out of it. Even when we introduce judicious little variations there is sometimes astonishing reluctance to credit us with the inventiveness which we feel to be our own. Some writers have boldly gone to the root of the matter and minimized the extent to which Canaan was influenced by Babylonia. This is perfectly legitimate. We cannot be too cautious how we use the facts of history. Eastern lands show to-day that the tide of conquest may roll over them and leave little trace behind. Egypt was influential in Palestine once, but there is not much trace of its influence in Canaan. This, however, is not entirely absent. Explorations in Palestine do exhibit considerable traces of Egyptian influence in some directions. What traces of Israelite influence are there to compare with it? Here, however, the question is being taken into a totally irrelevant field.