have no standard for measuring their
limits. Thus we sometimes meet with unexampled, and almost incredible powers of
memory and calculation; and those of eloquence and composition are equally
irregular,1 so that a surpassing instance in those arts, though it
might be unapproachably excellent, cannot possibly bear any of the marks or
requisites of a miracle. Wander has treated the miracle of the Coran very ably,2
but he has not exhibited it exactly in this light. He shows that the Mohammedan
argument, admitted to its furthest extent, does not prove the Coran to be
superior to works in other languages; but to this the Persian Doctors reply,
that these were not accompanied, as the Coran, with a challenge and claim to
prophecy; and irreverently assert that, when, these are brought forward by any
worker of wonders, it becomes incumbent upon the Deity, if the claim be false,
to raise up an equal or superior!3