Owen—Relations Expressed by the Passive Voice. 81 
thinking in the passive form: a thinking in which the order 
of the first and last terms- is reversed—a change which brings 
about reversal of relation. 
As said above, the passive form of thinking is substantially 
equivalent to some thinking in the active form. To illustrate, 
given “Brown employed Jones,” if now I change to “Brown 
was employed by Jones,” I plainly use the passive voice, and 
doubtless also think in a passive form; but this passive form 
of thought is not by any means equivalent to that expressed 
by “Brown employed Jones,” but only to that expressed by 
“Jones employed Brown.” On this distinction, obvious as it is, 
I lay some stress, because I don’t believe that “Brown was 
employed by Jones” would ever have developed from “Brown 
employed Jones,” but only from “Jones employed Brown;” for 
it is in the desire to change the form of thought, but not its 
substance, that I look to find the motive for the use of passive 
forms. 
Its Motive 
To illustrate, picture the catastrophe suggested by the words 
“The cow has scared the cook.” These words express the men¬ 
tal counterpart of an activity in which the two participants 
are posed in the relation (noted just above) of actor to actee. 
If, with the cook—and others not a few—you think of “cow” 
and “terrifier” as essential synonyms, relation may be more 
specifically known as that of cow-to-cowed—a relation under¬ 
stood to hold between the implicated parties in the order men¬ 
tioned. 
This order, it will surely be admitted, is completely natural,, 
especially in case I happened to see the cow and her perhaps; 
disquieting demeanor before I saw the cook. Yet I might, 
have seen the woman first; and I might have been profoundly 
moved by her dismay, before observing her disturber. Indeed,, 
without such prior observation, merely as my fellow human be¬ 
ing, as a member of the weaker sex, as the preparer of my 
food, the cook has prior claim upon my interest; and certainly, 
when now the first excitement of my observation yields to the 
