Had we striven to elevate ploughing into an art, and the ploughman into an artist—teaching him to understand the several subtle laws and forces concerned in the cultivation of every plant—and more especially of those with which he was dealing—had we thus made the turning up of the soil not a brute operation, but an intellectual process, we might have rendered the work a pleasure, and the workman a man of thought, dignity, and refinement. As yet, the art-exhibitions of this country have been confined solely to the handiworks of artists-proper. We have been led to suppose, by the restricted sense which we have given to the term _artist_, that Art was confined solely to the several forms of pleasing—pictorially, musically, or literarily. A more comprehensive view of the subject, however, is now teaching us that the different modes of operating on the intellectual emotions, of attracting attention, of exciting interest, of producing a feeling of astonishment, beauty, sublimity, or ludicrousness in others, are but one species of Art, for not only are the means of affecting the intellect, of inducing a sense of truth and causation an equally artistic operation, but, assuredly, the affection of material objects in a desired manner is just as worthy of being ranked in the same category. Whether the wished-for object be to operate upon mental, moral, or physical nature—whether it be to induce in the intellect, the heart, or the unconscious substances around us a certain predetermined state, such an end can be brought about solely by conforming to the laws of the object on which we seek to operate. Art, literally rendered, is cunning, and cunning is “kenning,” or knowing. It means, simply and strictly, intellectual power. _Ars_ is the power of mind, in contradistinction to the _In-ers_, or power of matter. Art, therefore, is merely the exercise of the mind towards a certain object—that express operation of the intellect which enables us to compass our intentions, no matter what the object may be—whether to convince, to astonish, to convulse with laughter, to charm with beauty, to overwhelm with the sense of the sublime, or even to extract metal from the ore, or weave the fibres of a plant into a covering for the body—each of these processes differs, not in the intellectual operation, but solely in the nature of the substances operated upon, every one requiring the knowledge of a different set of laws, and thus, in most instances, necessitating a distinct operator. Such are the marvellous effects of some of the more ordinary arts of civilization. Art, it has been said, lies simply in the adaptation of the means to the end—the more cunning or knowing this adaptation appears—that is to say, the greater the knowledge, intuitive or acquired, that it evinces, or is felt to require, the greater, of course, is the art, or, in other words, the more _artful_ the process becomes.