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nature of the will; and that the power he ascribes to it should really 

 be ascribed to the soul, Anima; and we have here a further reason 

 for supposing that with him the name Anima means simply vital 

 action. This conception of Anima is consistent with so much of his 

 Latin original as he gives in English; but in itself and in its relation 

 to the will it is not consistent with the meaning of the passage 

 as he gives it in Latin. I conclude that he may sometimes 

 be at fault as to the meaning of terms, but that having 

 taken his stand, whether upon a misconception or otherwise, he 

 stands with reasonable firmness and is in general consistent witn 

 himself. And the clearest exposition of mental science in the four- 

 teenth century was not likely to be particularly clear to one who 

 approached the subject in a casual way, with the sole object of adding 

 a new illustration to a popular treatment of an entirely different 

 subject. 



The Form of the Poem. 



viMioiiM. It has been said that a park and a vision constitute the 

 stock mechanism of the literary compositions of the fourteenth cent- 

 ury. Langland's method differs from the conventional method in 

 that it makes more of the vision and less of the ])ark than is usual. 

 The whole work is a series of visions, and the moments of waking 

 are so few and unimportant as scarcely to be noticeable. Where 

 they are noticeable, they are often suggestive of the park, that is of the 

 outer air, of the free life that the author must have lived at some 

 early time; they breathe an atmosphere of the hills and woods, 

 though even in this respect they produce an effect that is still con- 

 ventional. 



At other times the visions suggest what is not at all conventional: 

 that the author's contemplative habits were productive of sluggishness. 

 It seems strange that a person of his reverent habits should twice 

 represent himself as going to sleep in church, unless such an occur- 

 rence was not altogether unknown in his actual experience; and we 

 are reminded of Sloth who went to sleep during his own confession. 



From another standpoint the structure of the poem as a series of 

 visions is fortunate. Langland's work, regarded as a whole, lacks 

 consistency; whether we take into account the central character or 

 the minor ones; and even where he strove to secure consistency, we 

 have seen that his success was not complete. But in a vision, entire 

 consistency is not necessary; and in a series of them, the way is open 

 for the author to follow his fancy whither he will, and to cast to the 

 winds all the rules of unity and proportion and sequence; while we 



