"Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome." This statement, and indeed the entire chapter, may surprise the careful reader who recalls the celebration of the woodchopper's animality and the narrator's happy claim, made at the beginning of "The Ponds," that he has successfully integrated nature and spirit in his self. All of a sudden, the narrator is now declaring the superiority of spirit over nature and the incompatibility of spirituality and animality — in this chapter, the worlds of spirit and nature are put at odds. In short, the narrator's self is once again confronting a dialectical situation — which, again, must be resolved if his vision of life is to remain an integrated one. For while spirit is higher than nature, the narrator will not give up his vital relationship with nature; somehow, he must reconcile the apparent opposition between his spiritual instincts and his animal instincts.
To Thoreau, as well as to Emerson and other transcendentalists, nature reveals absolute truths. Therefore, we find the narrator turning to natural phenomena for an answer to his problem. Nature immediately confirms his belief that animality in man is opposed to spiritual perfection. He learns this by focusing on the life cycle of a butterfly. The butterfly, in its perfect state of fulfillment as a creature, eats very little, whereas the imperfect larva of the butterfly consumes every edible bit that it finds. From this, the narrator "skims off" a truth for man: "the gross feeder is a man in the larva state," while the ascetic individual is in his "butterfly" state, his state of perfection.
As may be noted, the narrator has not resolved the conflict between animality and spirituality. His examination of a particular natural phenomenon has only strengthened the conviction that "every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food." Upon a closer consideration of the butterfly, however, the narrator seems to find the key to his dilemma: "The abdomen under the wings of the butterfly still represents the larva." In the perfected body of the butterfly is integrated the lower state of his life and the higher. Here is what the narrator may be able to do. He may be able to perfect his lowly animal nature to the point at which it will not conflict with his spiritual nature. Since "we are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones," the body may be fashioned into a fit "temple" for the inner spiritual self. As the spiritual self is perfected, the "temple" will eventually be refined from within and physically show perfection.
