80 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Art's, and Letters. 
THINKING IN THE PASSIVE EOKM 
Its Nature 
By thinking in the passive form I mean the kind of thinking 
which the passive voice expresses, though—as I shall later strive 
to show—such thinking does not always choose the passive 
voice for its expression. To illustrate, in the sentence “Brown 
employed Jones” I intend the active voice to indicate that, of 
two persons, one was by a given action put in that relation to 
the other which may described as the relation of employer to 
employee. On the other hand, in “Jones was employed by 
Brown” I might intend the passive voice to intimate that, of 
two persons, one was by the given action put in that relation 
to the other, which would be described as the relation of em¬ 
ployee to employer. 
It should be observed that every thought in the passive form 
is virtually tantamount to some thought in the active form. 
The two are mental counterparts of one occurrence—or one 
status. But the first and last terms of one thinking have be¬ 
come respectively the last and first terms of the other. Unless 
accordingly these terms are in relation of equivalence, the 
change from what may be called a proverse order of the terms 
to a reverse order certainly will change the form of their rela¬ 
tion. In passing from ravine to hill-top I am conscious of 
what may be known as higherness; but, in returning, this will 
be displaced by lowerness. That is, reversal in the order of 
my terms entails a change from what may be called the pro- 
verse relation of higher to lower, to the reverse relation of lower 
to higher*. This, then, is what I more particularly mean by 
* What for convenience I exhibit thus as two relations, may be 
rather sensed as different aspects of the same relation. Thus, what¬ 
ever bulk-relation holds between for instance the unequal A and B, 
is obviously one only; yet the different mental transits—one from A 
to B, and one from B to A—develop different mind-sensations, which 
may be expressed, the one by A> B—the other by B A. 
