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besides, he had qualms about its psy- dent of New York City. In 1921, chological soundness. He destroyed Loewi devised an experiment in a the manuscript and launched into a dream, o r a daze, that led directly to second version, which he completed the discovery of the chemical transin another three days. “The Strange mission of impulses along nerves, for Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” which he shared the Nobel prize in was the product of this intensive 1936. work, and it presented the psycho- Other such creation has stemmed logical insights I wish to discuss from dreams: one of the most interhere. esting examples occurred in the late Robert Louis Stevenson isn’t likely nineteenth century when Hilprecht of to have missed much because of the University of Pennsylvania dethe interruption of his dream. The ciphered an Assyrian cuneiform inmind of genius, on which final evi- scription upon a broken clay cylindence is not yet in, can be harvested der that had defied analysis up to by day or night. Creation during then. Some of the great composers dreaming is a fascinating process. are said to have derived themes in THE JEKYLL-AND-HYDE IN ALL OF US One night in 1865, Friedrich August Kekule, professor of organic chemisdreams on occasion. Coleridge’s account of the genesis of “Kubla Khan” by CHARLES D. ARING, M.D.” try at Ghent University in Belgium, is in this tradition. But how meager had a dream about the molecular the crop when we consider the lush- Would AA’s Fourth Step have changed the ending o f the famous arrangement of the atoms within a ness of the material! There is good old horror story? A famous doctor thinks it might moleiule of benzene. Although con- evidence that each of us dreams siderable work had gone into the every night. If this is so, man is problem, chemists had been unable proceeding along in his usual, im- HREE-QUARTERS of a century creative mind’of the sleeping writer T ago, Fanny Stevenson, frightened had been engaged by a fantastic and in the night by her husband’s cries horrifying drama of extraordinary to discern the spatial configuration of this molecule. While Kekule slept, his active mind devised a solution provident way. Like many another genius, Stevenson was able to share with us the and moans, prodded him into wake- vividness and seeming reality that he around the image of a snake with its fruits of his fertile mind. In “The fulness. In a dawning state of con- had not had the opportunity of re- tail in its mouth. Although his dream Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. sciousness he was annoyed, and not solving. creation of the benzene ring was not Hyde,” Stevenson recovered his for the usually mundane reason.Rob- He arose the next morning, despite acceptable to his associates, Kekule dream story and reworked it so ert Louis Stevenson, who for weeks illness, to work on his dream fantasy. used it to predict the behavior of provocatively that, like some other had suffered bouts of lung hemor- Although he had a rough draft after derivatives of benezene. Consider- writers and poets, he is considered rhage and prostration, nevertheless three days, the tale left him unsatis- able progress in the field of organic to have been in advance of the great had been racking his brain for a fied, as had the interrupted original chemistry resulted when his predic- sanitarians of the mind. plot of any sort. Accordingly the creation. Fanny didn’t like the story; tions were verified. Most everybody has heard of *CHARLES D. ARING. M.D., professor and chairman of the department of neurology at the A somewhat analogous experience Stevenson’s tale about the dichotomy Unlversit of Cincinnati College of Medicine. is director of neurological service at the Cincinnati was that of Otto Loewi of the Phar- resident in each of us. Edward Hyde, General Aospital. More than one hundred of Dr. Aring’s discussions of neurology, ps chiatry, medical education and hilosophy have been published in journals and books both in the dnited States and macological Institute of the Univer- the prime mover in the story, is the Great Britaln. geprinted from The American Scholar. Volume 30, Number 1, Winter. 1960-61. Copyright 1960 by the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, by permission of the publishers. sity of Graz in Austria, now a resi- embodiment of evil; loathsome and

‘. ape-like, he evokes hate at first sight, of God there is no statute of limitaalthough sighting him is most un- tions.” It would appear, therefore, clear, as with the action in dreams. are. With Albert Jay Nock we can beusual. Hyde’s alter ego, the admir- that Stevenson felt there could be no Again like dreams, he is glimpsed by lieve that the conscious exclusion of able Dr. Henry Jekyll, is a Fellow of release from the past, particularly if few. He handles troublesome situa- reality is a distinct failure in integrity, the Royal Society, an eminently suc- the past was inadequately considered tions forthrightly and with dispatch; a moral failure. Several centuries becessful and respected physician, or vaguely understood. this trait is also reminiscent of dream fore Christ, Plato warned about the handsome, wealthy, with a string of A close examination of the lively activity. madness and misery of one who uses degrees attached to his name. Edward Hyde at this later day will Stevenson goes to some trouble to the appearance of things as a meas- We no longer doubt that we are reveal that ,he has many qualities impress upon us the reaction of the ure of their reality and makes a mess made as Dr. Jekyll and that our be- that we could wish for ourselves. He few who had caught glimpses of of it. Despite his eventual solution havior is apt to contain Hyde-like is strong and contemptuous of dan- Hyde: disgust, loathing and fear are for the evil and lively Hyde, Stevenvagaries. Human behavior is never ger; he can be direct and vigorous; the strong words that he uses. Hyde son betrays a certain fascination for quite predictable, mainly because the his faculties are sharp; he is com- evoked the desire to kill at first sight, him. Hyde’s spirits were always unseen Hyde, as Stevenson says, pletely lacking the dissemblance so a revulsion not unlike that evinced in higher, sharper, more acute than “never sleeps and constantly growls crippling to ordinary man. Among even the highest medical circles later Jekyll’s, and it appears that so was for license.” his endowments is that of being able in the nineteenth century when his love of life. In their day Jekyll Tenth Step Thoughts glimpses were beginning to bc af- and Hyde were coheirs to death; “There is no release from the past, particularly if the past is inadequately forded of the unconscious life of they were irrevocably oriented toconsidered or vaguely understood.” man, some of them through dreams. ward destruction despite any love of “The goal to strive for is the proper integration of the various facets o f a Today it is reasonably said that noth- life. Deep, blind, primitive compulpersonality.” “What is suppressed reta,i,ns its full force-indeed, suppression may stimulate ing provokes such fear as one’s un- sions that bypassed consciousness a swelling of the energy. conscious. For what other reason is drew them nearer and nearer to the “Harvest the strength o f the partial evil.” it that we would have inward peace, verge of death. These forces, usually “The rnore a thing knows its own mind the rnore living it becomes.” but will not look within? “The more neglected and about which we are While our ability to predict be- to arouse the doctor to do his bid- obscure and unintelligible man’s therefore unknowing, drag along havior may not have improved since ding even in the dead of night, no world (including his own inner such persons as Jekyll to premature Stevenson’s time, we have advanced mean feat in itself. Ip disaster he world),” said Walther Riese, “the destruction. Theirs is a drift toward in our ability to understand the man- maintains a certain equanimity. more likely he feels threatcned by tragedy. Stevenson said of this force ner in which we have behaved, and There is no beating about the bush the forces of nature, whether he ex- “. . . that what was dead and had no in the opportunity to do something with Mr. Hyde; you know where you periences them in his surrounding, shape should usurp the offices of about it. “Life can only be under- stand with him. Get in his way and animate or not, or in his own body; life.” stood backward, but it must be lived he takes steps to go around you or, thus, the more critical and the more Jekyll was frequently sunk in forward,” said Kierkegaard. Steven- if necessary, over you-conduct precarious his existence. To be free apathy, almost depression; he had son tells us little about Jekyll’s his- sanctioned in some eminently suc- from fear and malaise implies to a little zest for life and seemed bored tory prior to his maturity. We know cessful men if we can believe their large extent to be free from ignor- by his deadly round. His was, he that he is a prosperous bachelor of biographers. Mr. Hyde prefers to be ance.” said, “an aversion to the dryness of a fifty and that he was wild when he abroad by night, as does the pesti- Every authority on behavior-has life of study.” While Stevenson had was young. But as Stevenson had the lence that walketh in darkness, and reiterated “know thyself” as the best glimmerings that strength, vigor and 1 lawyer Utterson remark in his solilo- as do dreams. Released by the cen- means to achieve Plato’s mark of an spirit were on the side of Hyde, he I quy about Jekyll’s past, as it bore on sor, he commits his vigorous preda- educated man: that he should be saw no constructive way in which his present tribulations, “in the law tions when the coast is relatively able, and above all that he should al- they could be tapped. Indeed, in ways be willing, to see things as thcy 1885 there was none. In the late

nineteenth century these were waste We need constantly to be reproducts buried in the manifest per- minded that mystery will lighten and sonality, and there was no way to get perhaps be dissipated altogether to them. They were then about as when it is competently examined. hidden from man as was the force in This does not guarantee resolution, the atom, and potentially as destruc- but it is the starting point of any real tive. Our tools for working these de- investigation motivated by a genuine posits have improved, among them desire to find out. There isn’t one of the analysis of dreams, an exquisite the feared, loathed and hated groups although highly subtile instrument. or concepts-ur Hydes-that does Stevenson took the tack, perhaps not contain strengths, if we have the poetic license, perhaps autobio- curiosity, the wit, the courage and graphical and surely timely, that the energy to search them out and to there was no resolution of the prob- temper them. Alexander Pope in a lem but death and oblivion. This re- single line in his great poem, “An mains a prevailing breeze, and it Essay on Man,” notes that “All parhardly matters in what quarter one tial Evil, (is) universal Good,” a is standing. Our current Hydes too prelude to truth dredged up from frequently are given the now out- the subconscious of genius. moded treatment of suppression. It So the resolution of the Jekyllis difficult to convey the fact that Hyde dilemma is not repression or what is suppressed retains its full death, but rather the cultivation and force. Indeed, suppression may harvest of the strengths and-bystimulate a swelling of the energy. products–of the partial evil.