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145. Now let us take the verb see and name all the time forms which we can describe with the changes in the verb forms which we have learned to make and also with the verb phrases which we can construct with the help of the verbs, be, have, shall and will.

First, we want to express the present, what is happening now, and we want to put it in both the active and passive forms, so we say:

Note that the only change in the verb form in the present ACTIVE is the s-form for the third person singular. In the present passive the only change is the special form of the verb be for the first and third persons, singular.

When we want to tell what occurred yesterday or some time in the past, stated in the active and passive form, we say:

We have one other division of time which we must express—the future. Primitive man doubtless lived principally in the present, but with the development of memory and the means of recording events by a written language, he was able to make the deeds and achievements of the past a vital part of his life. But not until the faculty of thinking developed was the mind able to project itself into the future and make tomorrow the hope of today. Future time expresses hope, desire, growth.

Then you remember we had to devise a way of describing an action perfected or completed at the present or at some time in the past or at some time in the future—so we have present perfect, past perfect and future perfect.

146. But these are not all the phases of time which we can express. We have progressive, continuous action. So each of these six time forms has a progressive form.

Only the Present and Past Progressive forms have a passive form. The rest of the Progressive forms are expressed in the active forms only.

Exercise 3

Write the four following sentences in their active and passive forms, as the sentence, War sweeps the earth, is written.

1. Education gives power.

2. Knowledge frees men.

3. Labor unions help the workers.

4. The people seek justice.

Exercise 4

Underscore all the verbs and verb phrases in the following quotation. Write all the time forms of the transitive verb, lose, as the time forms of the verb see are written in the foregoing table.

When we study the animal world and try to explain to ourselves that struggle for existence which is maintained by each living being against adverse circumstances and against its enemies, we realize that the more the principles of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal society, and have become habitual to it, the more chance it has of surviving and coming triumphantly out of the struggle against hardships and foes. The more thoroughly each member of the society feels his solidarity with each other member of the society, the more completely are developed in all of them those two qualities which are the main factors of all progress; courage, on the one hand, and, on the other, free individual initiative. And, on the contrary, the more any animal society, or little group of animals, loses this feeling of solidarity—which may chance as the result of exceptional scarcity or else of exceptional plenty—the more the two other factors of progress, courage and individual initiative, diminish; in the end they disappear, and the society falls into decay and sinks before its foes. Without mutual confidence no struggle is possible; there is no courage, no initiative, no solidarity—and no victory!—Kropotkin.