topics discussed by them might be vindicated or refuted, the general question at issue may nevertheless not be advanced by such a method ; and the reader, reduced perhaps to the mortifying consideration that time and pains had been thrown away, may at last ask, 'to what purpose has been this waste?' . . . but situated as Martyn was in Persia, with a short tract on the Mohammedan religion before him, and his health precarious, the course which he took was perhaps the only one practicable." In pursuing his argument, Martyn has displayed great wisdom and skill, and his reasoning appears to be in general conclusive; in a few instances, however, he has perhaps not taken up the most advantageous ground.

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