I have laid it down as an invariable maxim constantly to follow historical tradition, and to hold fast by that clue, even when many things in the testimony and declarations of tradition appear strange and almost inexplicable, or at least enigmatical; for so soon as in the investigations of ancient history, we let slip that thread of Ariadne, we can find no outlet from the labyrinth of fanciful theories, and the chaos of clashing opinions. For this reason I cannot concur in the very violent hypothesis which a celebrated geologist, towards the close of the last century, M. De Luc, has hazarded respecting the deluge, and which the excellent Stolberg has adopted in his great historical work;[38] although the author of this theory, so far from intending to oppose it to the Mosaic account of the deluge, or to set aside the narrative of the inspired historian, conceived his hypothesis was calculated to furnish the strongest confirmation and clearest illustration of the sacred text. But I cannot reconcile his theory either with Holy Writ, or with the general testimony of historical tradition. The supposition is this, that the deluge was not a general inundation of the whole earth, according to the ordinary belief, but a mere change of the solid and fluid parts of the earth's surface, a dynamical transmutation of land and sea, so that what was formerly land became sea, and vice versa. This is much more than can be found in the old account of the Noachian flood, or than a sound critical interpretation would infer; and the supposition that the names of rivers and countries occurring in the Bible, refer to those objects as they existed in the original dry land; and are again to be transferred to similar objects in the new land that sprang up with, or after, or out of the deluge; this supposition, I say, bears too evidently the stamp of arbitrary conjecture, to gain admission and credit with those who have taken historical tradition for their guide. If by the geological facts which offer, or which we think offer, satisfactory proof, not only of the general Noachian flood, but of more than one deluge and of still more violent catastrophes of nature; if by these geological facts before our eyes, such a total revolution and dynamic transmutation of land and sea were really proved (and the character of these proofs I must abandon to the investigation and judgment of others); this great revolution examined in an historical point of view, and in reference to the Mosaic history, must then be rather referred to that elder period, whereof it is said: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."