4. It
was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise
the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two
natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if
I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was
radically both; and from an early date . . . I had learned to dwell
with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation
of these elements.
This quotation appears midway through
Chapter 10, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement
of the Case," which consists of the letter that Jekyll leaves for
Utterson. The letter allows us finally to glimpse the events of
the novel from the inside. In this passage, Jekyll discusses the
years leading up to his discovery of the potion that transforms him
into Hyde. He summarizes his theory of humanity’s dual nature, which
states that human beings are half virtuous and half criminal, half
moral and half amoral. Jekyll’s goal in his experiments is to separate
these two elements, creating a being of pure good and a being of
pure evil. In this way he seeks to free his good side from dark
urges while liberating his wicked side from the pangs of conscience.
Ultimately, however, Jekyll succeeds only in separating out Hyde,
his evil half, while he himself remains a mix of good and evil.
And eventually, of course, Hyde begins to predominate, until Jekyll
ceases to exist and only Hyde remains. This outcome suggests a possible
fallacy in Jekyll’s original assumptions. Perhaps he did not possess
an equally balanced good half and evil half, as he thought. The
events of the novel imply that the dark side (Hyde) is far stronger
than the rest of Jekyll—so strong that, once sent free, this side
takes him over completely.
