when a than-clause is appended. This is because in the full double clause there is necessarily not a fixed standard of comparison, but a sliding scale. The following example, not complicated by any the, will make the point clear:
My eyes are more and more averse to light than ever.— S. Ferrier.
You can be more averse than ever, or more and more averse, but not more and more averse than ever. Ever can only mean the single point of time in the past, whichever it was, at which you were most averse. But to be more and more averse is to be more averse at each stage than at each previous stage. Just such a sliding scale is essential with the more...the more. And perhaps it becomes so closely associated with the phrase that the expression of a fixed standard of comparison, such as is inevitably set up by a than-clause, is felt to be impossible even when the demonstrative the stands alone. In the next two examples, answers to the question More on what account? can be found, though they are so far disguised that the sentences would be uncomfortable, even if what makes them impossible were absent. That is the addition of the than-clause in each.
But neither is that way open; nor is it any the more open in the case of Canada than Australia.—F. Greenwood.
The the might pass if than Australia were omitted, and there would be no objection to it if we read further (for in the case) if we take the case, and better still, placed that clause first in the sentence: Nor, if we take the case of Canada, is the way any the more open. The then means on that account, viz., because we have substituted Canada.
I would humbly protest against setting up any standard of Christianity by the regularity of people's attendance at church or chapel. I am certain personally that I have a far greater realization of the goodness of God to all creation; I am certain that I can the more acknowledge His unbounded love for all He has made, and our entire dependence on Him, than I could twenty years ago, when I attended church ten times where I now go once.—Daily Telegraph.
