I was born [writes Jekyll] to a wealthy family and, after a good education, I gained the respect of all who knew me. I seemed to be guaranteed an honorable and distinguished future. If I had any single, serious flaw, it was that I was perhaps inclined to be a bit too spirited. Other people admired my light-hearted good nature, but personally, I was annoyed by it. I preferred to present an unchanging seriousness to the public. For that reason, I willfully decided to conceal all my pleasures. Now, years later, I realize that my life has been an admirable one, but it has certainly been a fraudulent one. No one but me knows my true nature. All these years, the public has seen only a veneer of my real self. No one could guess what degrading things I have done secretly, things which I must say in all honesty, I enjoyed very much. And yet I do not consider myself a hypocrite, for man has a dual nature. The professional, respectable side of my character is as much a part of me as is the side that has enjoyed to the fullest my secret "irregularities."
Because I knew, first-hand, about my own — and man's — dual nature, my medical studies began to increasingly focus on the origins and dimensions of this phenomenon of duality. This investigation, of course, bordered on the mystical and the transcendental, but only these disciplines could help me better understand myself and the duality of all human beings.
What I hoped to do, eventually, was to separate these two sides of a person's character. I reasoned with myself that if I could do this, then I could eradicate the unhappiness that exists in the "darker self," the self that so often makes life seem unbearable. I saw my quest as humanistic, for if I achieved my goal, man might walk more securely "on the upward path" and no longer be exposed to the disgrace of evil.
