Owen—Relations Expressed by the Passive Voice. 89 
actee.* That is, the personnel or dramatis personae of an 
action will consist in full of these two elements; and, in the 
active form of thinking, any relation sensed between them 
plainly can be only the relation thus far emphasized-—the re¬ 
lation of actor-to-(his own) actee. If now this personnel shall 
vary by the omission of either element, any recognized rela¬ 
tion certainly will be a new one; for the old relation plainly 
cannot hold between two terms of which one is not in the mind. 
The possible variations in the personnel moreover will suggest 
the several new relations which those variations may develop. 
The variant personnel may plainly be made up as follows: 
actor and actee may both be present; the actor may disappear; 
the actee may disappear; both actor and actee may disappear. 
The action will not be omitted; for without it there will not 
be any action-formed relation; no other relation is considered; 
and without relation there will be no proper thoughtf and also 
no expression. 
In the passive form of thinking, corresponding variations 
may be looked for. In expression by the passive voice the 
actee of the active is however subject, while the actor is known 
as the agent. These familiar designations I will use to make 
some following sub-titles clear, as now I reach the nucleary 
topic of investigation, indicated by my leading title, i. e. “The 
Relations Expressed by the Passive Voice.’ 7 Accordingly, 
* The indirect object I omit, and also other more or less im¬ 
mediate participants in action, as they seem to me to throw no val¬ 
uable light on the relations in which actor, action and actee appear. 
t The mere co-thinking of e. g. the missionary and the cannibal is 
not at least such thought as language makes the effort to express. 
