However, in European history, as the classical languages of Greek and Latin gave way to the vernacular languages of Europe it was the active voice that was given more and more priority in how the world was talked about and thought about. The active voice is the grammatical voice that speaks as if an actor can act without being affected by the action, and can, if they wish, reverse the action. It is the voice that says that the drift is the end product of the driving wind, the cast the end product of the casting, the throw. This is the voice that laid the ground for the seemingly detached observer of modern science, the distanced actor of technology – and its passive twin our sense of the environment as mere resource or instrument (Romanyshyn 1989). Owen Barfield describes this as a process of ‘internalization’,‘the shifting of the centre of gravity of consciousness from the cosmos around him into the personal human being himself’ (Barfield 1954: 166-7).