Over a century ago, in the late 1800s, some scientists were already very interested in separating human nature with the real self. Today, a descendant of a remarkably talented scientist of that time revealed a long kept family secret. David Utterson is a middle-aged man. He had been working as a bank cashier for twenty-three years. This coincidence made him a lot of benefice. ‘My father passed away, four months ago.’ Said Mr. Utterson, ‘He was old, and when he knew that his time was short. He left me a key and a letter. In the letter, he exhorted me to take good care of the key and to make sure I would pass it on to my children, the way it has always been. He also claims in the letter that he doesn’t know what secret the key leads to, but there is one thing he is sure of: this secret is so important, the Utterson’s family must risk their lives if they have to in order to keep the key in a safe place.’
As soon as David Utterson got the message, he started to do some very detailed research about this mysterious key. With the initials engraved on the sides and the unique round shape of the teeth on the key, Mr Utterson was led to one of the safest and most ancient banks of the region. Mr Utterson opened the deposit box with an anxious heart, and with a vague wave of deception, he started to read the two letters he had found in the box. What Mr Utterson didn’t know at that time, is that these simple letters would later completely upset the scientific view we have known so far. The two letters were all intended to a certain Utterson. We believe that two hundred years ago, this Utterson was an ancestor of David Utterson the secret revealer.
A scientist named Hastie Lanyon wrote the first letter, dated on the 9th of January, 18–. It may be hard to believe, but the letter writes about a man changing himself into a certain Dr Jekyll after drinking a potion. Below is a passage in the letter describing the man who appeared one night at Dr Lanyon’s house: “… Twelve O’clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the knocker sounded very gently on the door. I went myself at the summons, and found a small man crouching against the pillars of the portico…”, “… at last, I had a chance of clearly seeing him. I had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity and great appaent debility of constitution, and – last but not least- with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood…”
“… I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the principle of hatred…” According to the letter, that man with a very odd countenance came to Dr Lanyon’s house to get some chemicals back. He claims that he really needs them for some reasons that are not mentioned in this first letter, but comes out in the second one.
Dr Jekyll himself writes the second letter. At the beginning of the letter, he goes through his own life, talking about his early ambitions, “… it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that men is not truly one, but truly two…”
Notice that Dr Jekyll is interested in splitting a human into two. After long years of scientific studies, he actually does manage to separate human nature with the real self. He is changed into a small man with a very evil looking. “Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay” , is how Dr Jekyll himself describes Mr. Edward Hyde.
Specialists later examined the letters and most of its content was proven to be true, a certain Mr. Hyde has existed at that time, he even committed a crime; he killed a landowner in a very cold way, this was published on a newspaper article at that time. The letter says that Mr. Hyde would emerge every time Dr Jekyll drank the potion, and then Hyde slowly started to possess him. Since this part of the story has not yet been proved, many psychologists say that Dr Jekyll must have became schizophrenia; he exaggerated the story in a way that is unbelievable.
