Owen—Relations Expressed by the Passive Voice. 97 
sion. From contributory, partial agency the next step—or 
the next to that—will naturally be to agency complete, exclu¬ 
sive, self-sufficient. This indeed appears to me to be expressed,, 
if now I say “She runs by steam,” in which the figurative' 
“runs” is felt to differ very little in its ultimate suggestion 
from “is run” or “is propelled.” 
It appears accordingly that, if in evolution of the passive it 
at any time be necessary for the preposition “by” to pass from 
the idea of aid to that of agency, the change will easily be made 
and easily understood. With this in mind, and with ideas of 
action now more flexible (see pp. 19-20), I turn to figurative 
self-infliction of an action, noting that, although it is per se 
absurd, it cannot therefore fairly be regarded as implausible; 
for action surely is conceived in other figures more absurd, 
yet actually formed beyond a peradventure. Personally, at 
least, when once I am accustomed to the Spanish thought- 
form—eminently to be envied—-indicated by “The letter you 
requested me to mail has disremembered (or forgot) itself for 
me,” I’m very ready to accept as actually formed the mental 
pictures of another, even though I don’t belong to his particu¬ 
lar school of figurative art. 
A priori probability that the actee would at the first be pictured 
as inflicting action on itself, assisted by the actor 
That action would be figuratively conceived as self-inflicted 
is suggested when it is remembered that, so long as a passive 
voice has not yet been developed, what the speaker regularly 
thinks of first—and therefore regularly mentions first in all lin¬ 
guistic thinking of an action—is what momentarily at least 
posed as actor. Thus, even in “Brown received a blow from 
Bobinson,” the syntax of both thought and sentence poses Brown 
as, in a figurative sense, the actor, i. e. “doing” the receiving. 
It is true that now and then a word forsakes its proper place 
in the sentential line. For instance, thinking of St. George’s 
killing of the dragon, I may say, poetically or affectedly, “St. 
George the dragon slew,” “The dragon St. George slew,” or 
even “The dragon slew St. George.” So too indeed, instead 
