88 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
the unreliable approximate equivalents of “merciless,” the use 
of which might pose me as the master of a rich vocabulary. 
Perhaps indeed we all are ostentatious ; but we all presum¬ 
ably are also indisposed to excessive effort. Why write the 
figures 847 nineteen times in column, and then add them, 
when you reach the same result by writing once and multiply¬ 
ing by nineteen ? Why use a different hammer for every nail 
you drive, when one will answer ?—or lug about a set of golf 
sticks, just to knock the pebbles off your paths ? 
In passing from the active to the passive forms of thinking, 
language found it irksome to provide a special verb for each 
reverse relation. It was better, in the passive sentence, to in¬ 
vest each verb of active thinking with an indication that, in 
passive thinking, it expresses a relation the reverse of that 
employed in active thinking. A little variation in the costume 
of the active verb—a mere inflection—was enough. The policy 
of providing every verb of action with a help-meet to exhibit 
action as producer of reverse relation-—the policy of doubling 
the number of the action verbs—was given up. The effort 
thus economized was ready to be spent upon the evolution of a 
passive voice. 
If the passive has been rightly said to express relations the 
reverse of those expressed or expressible by the active, it is ob¬ 
vious that a rational effort to differentiate the passive from 
the active (and the different passive values, one from another) 
will base itself upon some study of relations both in proverse 
and in reverse form. 
Reverse relations are moreover best perceived, in their ex¬ 
pression by the passive voice, when juxtaposed with the rela¬ 
tions indicated by the active voice. If the perception of these 
latter be complete, since every reverse has its proverse, the rela¬ 
tion-repertory of the passive voice may be derived from that de¬ 
veloped by the active. I begin accordingly with the active 
voice. 
An expression in the active voice may recognize not only 
an action, but also an actor and a direct object—or, say, an 
