That curious psychological story, or study, called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, shows how entirely a man is what he thinks himself. Dr. Jekyll is mainly a good man and respectable, rich and learned; but he has a sinister side, and this side he chemicalizes into separate life, so that, at will, he can be either one or the other, Dr. Jekyll or his opposite, but not both at once. Hyde does awful things,—even commits a murder,—of which Jekyll is ashamed.
The Doctor does not resemble his awful Double, either in mind or stature, and this Double finally undoes him quite,—like the Double in Dr. E. E. Hale's famous tale. One day Mr. Hyde is utterly unable to transform himself back into his inventor, Dr. Jekyll; but the bloodhounds of the law are on his track, as Hyde, and so he commits suicide.
This is not a mere story. It is a study, showing how every one has good and bad thoughts within. Our better and worser selves often hold arguments together, as if each of us were two persons, instead of one; "their thoughts," as the Apostle expresses it, "the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another,"—holding a sort of dialogue with one another.
