Voice is that form of the transitive verb which shows whether the subject acts or is acted upon. There are two voices:

• active
• passive

The active voice represents the subject as acting.

For example

In the sentence:
John struck William.
John is the subject and performs the action.

The passive voice represents the subject as acted upon.

For example

In the sentence
William was struck by John.
William is the subject, but he does not act. He receives the act or is acted upon.

Only transitive verbs can properly have a passive voice.
Any sentence, having for its predicate a transitive verb, may be transformed by changing the active to the passive voice, or the passive to the active. The same meaning, or nearly the same, will be expressed in either case.

For example

The locusts devoured (active) the grass.
The grass was devoured (passive) by the locusts.

Strictly speaking, the ideas of active and passive, though manifesting themselves in the form of the verb, are not attributes of the verb, but of the persons or things connected with it.

• The one performs the act.
• The other receives or suffers it.

If the active person or thing is made the subject of the sentence, the verb is said to be in the active voice. If the passive person or thing is made the subject, the verb is said to be in the passive voice.

The following are all the possible cases that can occur:

• the same person or thing may represent both the actor and the acted upon.

  For example

  He struck himself.
  Marion improved herself.

• different persons or things are the actor and the acted upon.

  For example

  Marion saw William.
  William was seen by Marion.

• each may be, at the same time, both active and passive.

  For example

  The young soldiers struck each other.
  They struck, each [struck] the other.

• three different persons or things may be employed; one active, and two passive. One may act, another suffers the act, and a third receives the object that suffered the act.

  For example

  He (the actor) gave me (receives the object of the act) a book (suffers the act).
  He told me his history.
  His history was told to me by him.
  I was told his history by him.

• one acts, while another is acted upon, and thereby transformed or made into the third.

  For example

  They made him an officer.
  He was made an officer by them.
  An offer was made of him by them.
  In this case there are only two different persons or things. The second and third denote the same individual.

The use of the passive voice enables the writer to:

• conceal the agent.

  For example

  The deed was done, I must not tell by whom.

• give prominence to an event, or to state the event when the agent is unknown.

  For example

  Letters were introduced at an early period.

• preserve the unity of a sentence which the use of the active voice would destroy.

  For example

  The ore was mined, shipped to England and smelted in less than six months.
  Observe that in this sentence, there are at least three different agents.

The active voice is used to make the agent prominent.

For example

Moses conducted the Israelites out of Egypt.

Some intransitive verbs, when accompanied by a following preposition, admit of a passive form.

For example

They laughed at him.
He was laughed at.

When a verb takes two objects, one direct and the other indirect, the latter is sometimes made the subject of the verb in the passive voice.

For example

I told him a story.
He was told a story.
A story was told to him

Certain intransitive verbs, such as come, arrive, and fall, admit a passive form. Even so, with an intransitive signification, as well can be seen by observing that the agent or actor, not the object, is the subject of the sentence in either form.

For example

Babylon is fallen (has fallen).

This idiom is less common now than formerly, and may be regarded as an imitation of the French or the German form of similar verbs.

At this point proceed to Exercise 19.