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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Paul Elmer More's philosophy was self-styled ‘dualism’, and because developed initially from a student's enthusiasm instigated by a book on Manicheism, has often been misinterpreted. In this paper, on the basis of More's long development, I shall try to survey the nuances of his ‘dualism’ or ‘dualisms’, the various aspects of ‘dualism’ which he developed largely through case studies of thinkers of the past. In a significant way, to parody William James, the Shelburne Essays might well be called ‘The Varieties of Dualistic Experience’, and of course for More ‘dualistic’ was virtually a synonym for ‘religious’. Out of these studies issued a Christian Platonism, or more precisely, a philosophy of the Incarnation, particularly in Christ the Word. The subsequent volume in a series called ‘The Greek Tradition: From the Death of Socrates to the Council of Chalcedon’ is The Catholic Faith. Although More called his dualism ‘absolute’, and it is sometimes presented as ‘absolute dualism’, the ‘sacramental idea’ at the heart of Christianity is said to rest ‘ultimately upon a dualistic conception of the world, in accordance with which matter and spirit are essentially distinct yet mutually interdependent. It implies on the one side that matter can be indefinitely adapted to spiritual uses, and on the other side that spirit requires now, and, so far as our knowledge and imagination reach, will always require the aid of some sort of corporeal instruments. It points to a divine purpose unfolding itself in a continuous process wherein the stuff of existence is…transmuted into an ever finer medium of order and beauty and righteousness and joy.
page 389 note 1 One such travesty is Kathleen M. Harrington's ‘Paul Elmer More and Neoplatonism’, in Harris, R. Baine, The Significance of Neoplatonism International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VirginiaGoogle Scholar; the basis of a scornful attack is laid in the same author's ‘More, Paul Elmer and Platonism, , in Woodbridge, Frederick J. E. and Naturalistic Interpretation of Plato’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1971), pp. 69–80Google Scholar. There is a tradition of condemning More without first hearing his case. See below, p. 400, n. 7.
page 389 note 2 PEM, Shelburne Essays, I (1904)Google Scholar; II (1905); III (1905); IV (1906), Houghton Mufflin, Boston; v (1908), G. P. Putnam's Sons, N.Y.; VI, Studies of Religious Dualism VII (1910); VIII, The Drift of Romanticism (1913); XI, Aristocracy and Justice (1915), Houghton Mufflin, Boston (abbreviated ‘SE’).
page 389 note 3 PEM, Christ the Word (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1927Google Scholar), vol. IV of The Greek Tradition.
page 389 note 4 PEM, The Catholic Faith (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1921), ‘The Eucharistic Sacrament’, p. 122.Google Scholar
page 390 note 1 Ibid. p. 123. It is incredible that H. B. Parkes reviewed The Greek Tradition under the title ‘Paul Elmer More: Manichean’, Hound and Horn, vol. 5, no. 3 (April-June 1932), pp. 477–83Google Scholar. This review contains choice absurdities such as characterizing the ‘inner check’ both as eudaimonistic and ‘negative’, characterizing More as a hater of life (‘happiness consists in death’) and also as one aiming at ‘the harmonious increase of life!’. Even worse than this is the collection of attacks in Grattan, C. Harley, The Critique of Humanism, A Symposium, Brewer and Warren, N.Y., 1930.Google Scholar
page 390 note 2 On More's moral dualism, the child of ten wrote ‘ther are 2 ways to do every thing, they are the right and the rong…’, Dakin, , p. 6.Google Scholar
page 390 note 3 On More's theological dualism, we find a crisis with regard to God, ‘as the absolute unconditioned Cause of all things’. The problem evidently was why in a world created by such a God there should be men who ‘loved darkness rather than light’. The unresolved problem led PEM to withdraw from the Presbyterian church. Dakin, , pp. 17–18.Google Scholar
page 391 note 1 Letter of PEM to Schafer, Robert, 22 Oct. 1931Google Scholar, quoted in Duggan, , p. 20.Google Scholar
page 391 note 2 Dakin, , p. 45.Google Scholar
page 391 note 3 Letter to Alice More, 12 March, 1894, quoted by Dakin, , p. 46.Google Scholar
page 391 note 4 Ibid. p. 76.
page 391 note 5 Ibid. pp. 82–3. In this phase of dualism, the point is not the opposites but the search for balance, the theme of μηδέν ἂγαν and nil nimis.
page 391 note 6 Ibid. pp. 250–1.
page 392 note 1 Ibid. p. 251.
page 392 note 2 Ibid. pp. 252–3.
page 392 note 3 ‘Marginalia’, 25–6, quoted by Duggan, , p. 23.Google Scholar
page 392 note 4 A Century of Indian Epigrams: Chiefly from the Sanskrit of Bhartrihari (Houghton Mufflin, Boston, 1898), p. 13Google Scholar, cited in Duggan, , p. 26.Google Scholar
page 392 note 5 SE VI has an epigram on the title page from Sir Leslie Stephen: ‘Manicheism may be disavowed in words. It cannot be excised from the actual belief of mankind.’
page 392 note 6 Ibid. p. 17.
page 393 note 1 Ibid. p. 18. More illustrates this dualism by the sense of sin, the fable of the Fall, and writes movingly of the crucifixion of Christ, p. 19.
page 393 note 2 Ibid. p. 20.
page 393 note 3 Ibid. p. 21.
page 393 note 4 Ibid. pp. 39–41.
page 394 note 1 SE VI p. 350.Google Scholar
page 394 note 2 Ibid. p. 352.
page 394 note 3 Ibid. pp. 352–3.
page 395 note 1 SE VIII, The Drift of Romanticism, pp. 247–302.Google Scholar
page 395 note 2 Ibid. p. 248.
page 395 note 3 Ibid. p. 248.
page 395 note 4 Ibid. p. 249.
page 395 note 5 Ibid. p. 249.
page 395 note 6 Ibid. p. 258.
page 395 note 7 Ibid. pp. 257–60.
page 395 note 8 Ibid. pp. 293–4.
page 396 note 1 Ibid. p. 298.
page 396 note 2 Ibid. pp. 296–7.
page 396 note 3 Ibid. p. 297.
page 397 note 1 PEM, Hellenistic Philosophies (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1923), pp. 206–8.Google Scholar
page 397 note 2 Ibid. pp. 209–11.
page 397 note 3 Ibid. p. 212.
page 397 note 4 Ibid. ch. v, pp. 172–259.
page 397 note 5 Ibid. p. 259.
page 397 note 6 Ibid. pp. 374. The Early Chapters of The Sceptical Approach to Religion, New Shelburne Essays, vol. 11 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1934Google Scholar), make clear that More is appealing to experience against theory, much as Dr Johnson commented on Jonathan Edwards' denial of freedom of the will: ‘All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it’ (p. 27).
page 397 note 7 Ibid. p. 375.
page 397 note 8 Ibid.
page 398 note 1 PEM, Christ the Word (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1927), p. 8Google Scholar. More cites Clement of Alexandria, Strom. II, XX, 104 applying these words to Christ.
page 398 note 2 Ibid. p. 9.
page 398 note 3 Ibid. p. 10.
page 398 note 4 Ibid. p. 137.
page 398 note 5 Ibid. p. 241.
page 399 note 1 PEM, The Catholic Faith (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1931), p. 8.Google Scholar
page 399 note 2 Ibid. pp. 66–7. Dakin has the phrase changed to ‘a conjunction of such contraries’, p. 302 n.
page 399 note 3 Ibid. p. 67.
page 399 note 4 Ibid. p. 69 n.
page 399 note 5 Ibid. p. 72.
page 399 note 6 Ibid. p. 72.
page 400 note 1 Ibid. p. 74.
page 400 note 2 Ibid. p. 75. ‘As I read the Buddhist books and am filled with admiring reverence for the Founder of the Dharma, it seems to me at times as if that great soul were searching on all the ways of the spirit for the dogma of the Incarnation, and that the fact of the historic Jesus, could it have been known to him, might have saved his religion in later ages from floundering helplessly, yet not ignobly, among the vanishing shadowy myths that so curiously resemble and multiply, while ever just missing, the story of the Word made flesh.’
page 400 note 3 Ibid. p. 122.
page 400 note 4 Ibid.
page 400 note 5 Ibid. p. 123.
page 400 note 6 Cohen, Morris R., ‘Calvinism Without the Gory of God’, The New Republic (31 August 1918), vol. 16, p. 143Google Scholar, reprinted in The Faith of a Liberal (Henry Holt & Co., N.Y., 1946). pp. 72–77Google Scholar. This is one of the few review-articles that takes More seriously. Cohen admired More's ‘admirable courage’ and shared his suspicion of ‘social service’ and faith in ‘mechanical progress’. ‘Above all [Cohen] share [d] his aversion for sentimental romanticism’ (Ibid. pp. 73, 77).
page 400 note 7 The view which has provoked my defence is that of Harrington, K. W., who in Frederick J. E. Woodbridge and the Naturalistic Interpretation of plato, op. cit.Google Scholar, introduces More and Shorey as thinkers ‘in opposition to the new educational reforms and the new naturalism which replaced the theological-idealistic orientation of American universities’ p. 60). Perhaps just as question-begging, these thinkers are classified as representatives of gentility against the new writers such as Hemingway who were ‘candidly sensual and even praised sexual freedom…’ (p. 61). My dissatisfaction with arguing this way is that these conservatives may well have a valid appraisal of the loss of standards, and that the rejection of the classical Christian heritage may well be degeneracy and not progress at all.
page 401 note 1 Wilson, R. McL., ‘Mani and Manichaeism’, Edwards, , Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan, N.Y., 1967), vol. 5, pp. 149–50Google Scholar, mentions considerable twentieth-century study, but neglects More.
page 402 note 1 Lloyd, G. E. R., Polarity and Opposition in Greek Thought (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1966).Google Scholar
page 402 note 2 Smart, Ninian, ‘Hinduism’, in Edwards, , Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan, N.Y., 1967), vol. 4, p. 156.Google Scholar
page 402 note 3 The articles ‘Dualism’ in Hastings, James, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1912), vol. v, pp. 100 ff.Google Scholar, after Rudolf Eucken's are followed by ‘Dualism, Greek’ and ‘Dualism, Hebrew’. The former distinguishes five types of dualism. The latter continues the stress on the healthy Jewish respect for the body, turned to contempt in Christianity by ‘Greek and Oriental dualism’ (p. 100). Werblowsky's, R. J. Zwi ‘Dualism’ in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Macmillan, N.Y., Keter, Jerusalem, 1971), vol. 6, pp. 242–5Google Scholar shows the way this perplexing question has been enlightened by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
page 402 note 4 Bianchi, Ugo, author of Il dualismo religioso: saggio storico ed etnologico, 1958Google Scholar, refers to these as ‘two important general surveys’. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropedia, art. ‘Dualism, Religious’ (Benton, Chicago, 1974), vol. 5, p. 1070.Google Scholar
page 402 note 5 Jonas, Hans, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974).Google Scholar
page 403 note 1 Jonas, Hans, ‘Gnosticism’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 337.Google Scholar
page 403 note 2 Runciman, Steven, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1947), p. 175.Google Scholar
page 403 note 3 SE VI pp. 21–2.Google Scholar
page 403 note 4 Balz, Albert G. A., ‘Dualism and Early Modern Philosophy’, part I, Journal of Philosophy (11 April 1918), vol. xv, no. 8, pp. 197–219Google Scholar; part II, Ibid. (25 April 1918), vol. xv, no. 9, pp. 225–41, esp. p. 240.
page 403 note 5 Mourant, John A., ‘Cartesian Man and Thomistic Man’, Journal of Philosophy (6 June 1957), vol. LIV, no. 12, pp. 374–83Google Scholar, with Albert G. A. Balz, ‘Concerning the Thomistic and Cartesian Dualisms: a Rejoinder to Professor Mourant’, Ibid. pp. 383–90.
page 404 note 1 Ibid. p. 379. It is unfortunate that Balz in his reply fails to develop this resolution.
page 404 note 2 Eliade, Mircea, ‘Prolegomenon to Religious Dualism, Dyads and Polarities’, The Quest (University of Chicago Press, 1969Google Scholar), conclusion.
page 404 note 3 Zaehner, R. C., Dialectical Christianity and Christian Materialism (Oxford University Press, London, 1971).Google Scholar
page 404 note 4 Another such argument is that of John Wright Buckham, ‘Duality and Dialectic’, based on an insight of C. S. Peirce: existence is ‘brought about by dyadism, or opposition, as its proper determination’ ( Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 1, p. 249).Google Scholar
page 405 note 1 Duggan, Timothy J., ‘Hamilton, William’, in Edwards, , Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 409.Google Scholar
page 405 note 2 Pratt, James Bissett, Adventures in Philosophy and Religion (Macmillan, N.Y., 1931).Google Scholar
page 405 note 3 Pratt, , Matter and Spirit: A Study of Mind and Body in Their Relation to the Spiritual Life (Macmillan, N.Y., 1922).Google Scholar
page 405 note 4 Ch. v.
page 405 note 5 p. 184. Pratt goes beyond epistemological dualism, and although he develops a philosophy of religion, the ethical aspect is slighted.
page 405 note 6 Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Revolt Against Dualism (W. W. Norton, N.Y., 1930).Google Scholar
page 406 note 1 This able summary of Lovejoy's argument for dualism is from his colleague, Boas, George, art. ‘Lovejoy. Arthur Oncken’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5, p. 95.Google Scholar
page 406 note 2 Yolton, John W., ‘The Dualism of Mind’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LI, no. 6 (18 March 1954), pp. 173–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also Yolton, , Metaphysical Analysis (University of Toronto Press, 1967Google Scholar), especially part II, ‘Dualism’. Cummings, Philip W., ‘Köhler, Wolfgang’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 354–60, esp. pp. 358–9Google Scholar. Some thinkers are epistemological dualists without being mind-body dualists or value—fact dualists or mechanist—vitalist dualists. One of these is Wolfgang Köhler.
page 407 note 1 Loemker, Leroy E., ‘Pessimism and Optimism’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 6, p. 115.Google Scholar
page 407 note 2 See Tsanoff, R. A., ‘Fichte, Johann Gottlieb’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 195.Google Scholar
page 407 note 3 More defined his position historically. The primary thrust is not to define ‘good’ but to solve the problem of evil.
page 408 note 1 Scheffler, Israel, ‘The New Dualism: Psychological and Physical Terms’, Journal of Philosophy (7 December 1950), vol. XLVII, no. 25, pp. 737–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 408 note 2 Randall, John Herman Jr, ‘Dualism and Practical Philosophy’, Essays in Honor of John Dewey, On the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (Henry Holt, N.Y., 1929), p. 306.Google Scholar
page 408 note 3 Dewey, John, ‘Duality and Dualism’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. XIV (1917), p. 491.Google Scholar
page 409 note 1 Randall, , op. cit. p. 308.Google Scholar
page 409 note 2 Ibid.
page 409 note 3 Ibid. p. 309.
page 409 note 4 Ibid.
page 409 note 5 Ibid. p. 318.
page 409 note 6 Ibid. p. 319.
page 409 note 7 Ibid. p. 322.
page 409 note 8 Dewey, John, ‘The Objectivism-Subjectivism of Modern Philosophy’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. XXXVIII, no. 20 (25 Sept. 1941), p. 533CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The context is a criticism of Whitehead.
page 410 note 1 Murray, J. A. H., A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, etc. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1897), pp. 696–7.Google Scholar
page 410 note 2 Kaminsky, Alice R., ‘Lewes, George Henry’, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, pp. 451–4.Google Scholar
page 410 note 3 More, Paul Elmer and Cross, Frank Leslie, Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (Morehouse Publishing Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1935).Google Scholar
page 411 note 1 The Catholic Faith, pp. 71–2.Google Scholar
page 411 note 2 The Demon of the Absolute. See Dakin, , p. 214 n.Google Scholar
page 411 note 3 The author expresses gratitude to the American Philosophical Society and to the Emory Research Committee for continued support, and to the Smithsonian Institute, where he spent a year as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.