And first, as to miracles, Martyn does not deny that there might be an intellectual
miracle, he merely depreciates the Coran as such by saying that it would not
be generally intelligible. Dr. Lee characterises the Coran as a
"miracle of the wrong sort," and declines the subject of miracles
altogether, stating that neither the Mohammedan nor Christian definitions are
applicable to our argument, and that, so great stress having been laid on magic,
it was better to hold by the more certain guidance of prophecy (p. 535). He was
probably right, considering the turn the argument had taken; but the weight of
miracles is certainly not to be cast off by us in the general discussion. We
would, therefore, reject the limitation of Mirza Ibrahim, arid demand with
Martyn universal experience as the test of a miracle, which must be a
manifest interference of the Divine power suspending or exceeding the usual laws
which He has established, and which have guided the world since the beginning.
In accordance with this principle the name of miracle must be denied to any
exhibition of intellectual power; there can be no such thing as an
intellectual miracle, at least so far as man's faculties are capable of judging.
A power might, indeed, be conceived of perceiving unseen or future events, but
this would constitute really, not an intellectual, but a prophetic miracle. We
can ascertain the laws which govern matter, and are therefore able to perceive
when those laws succumb to a superior power; but the laws, properly speaking,
which govern the intellect, are more obscure, and we