Owen—Relations Expressed by the Passive Voice . 87 
After all I’m half aware that I’ve been speaking quasi fig¬ 
uratively in either one of the expressions cited. Both expres¬ 
sions came to me as an inheritance. In each I found a mode 
of outer-world conceiving, adequate to phenomenon-suggestion. 
Whether my train (of thought) be pulled by a locomotive at 
one end, or pushed at the other by an elephant, I care not, so 
long as my train arrives in safety. Given then “The water 
wet the sponge/ 7 if I prefer to begin my thinking and ex¬ 
pression of the happening with the sponge, I suppose “The 
sponge absorbed the water 77 will be felt to meet the most im¬ 
portant needs of speech. 
I suppose moreover that linguistic ingenuity may be relied 
upon to have been equal to emergencies in every other case in 
which it may have been desired to express the passive form of 
thinking (or a figurative, make-shift substitute)—and that, 
without creating passive verbal forms. 
Its Convenience 
This appears most clearly when comparison is made between 
the passive verb-forms and the verbs that might be used instead 
of them. Recalling substitutes already mentioned, I admit 
again that, given “to precede, to overlie, to wet, 77 the corres¬ 
ponding passive forms “to be preceded, overlain 77 and “wet 77 
are far from indispensable, because the reverse relations which 
the passive forms express are adequately indicated by “to fol¬ 
low, underlie, absorb. 77 
Such expression is however much too wasteful of linguistic 
effort. To unnecessary verbal effort I am sometimes not in¬ 
deed averse, provided there be not too much of it. If I wish 
an opposite to “merciful, 77 I may indeed enjoy a display of 
lexical equipment, making use in turn of “vengeful, cruel, 
stern, severe, etc; 77 but I can’t rely on each or any of these 
words to come to me unfailingly; and so I 7 m very glad to be 
able always to fall back on “merciless” or “immerciful. 77 The 
meaning-changers, “un 77 and “less, 77 since they are constantly 
in use, I do not easily forget; and, being too in almost every 
case available, I come to prize them much more highly than 
