It seemed at the end of "Higher Laws" that the narrator had resolved the conflict between his animality and spirituality. Yet the dialogue which begins this chapter indicates that he is still troubled by it. The Hermit and the Poet represent the two instinctual sides of the narrator. We should note that when the Poet invites the Hermit to go fishing (an animalistic activity) the Hermit must completely abandon his higher thoughts in order to do so — in spite of the fact that he is "as near [to] being resolved into the essence of things" as he ever was in his life. Thus, through this dialogue, Thoreau is restating the incompatibility of spiritual consciousness and animalistic activity. For the narrator to follow his animal instincts by fishing, he must disengage himself from spiritual activity; the narrator finds it an "either-or" choice that he must make. He cannot follow both his animal and his spiritual instincts at the same time.
Still very much interested in integrating the two instincts, the narrator turns to nature again for a solution — and he finds it. He sees the partridge, the "winged cat," and the loon as natural symbols of how spirituality and animality can be integrated. The partridge provides an example of how animality can be perfected to the point at which it complements spirituality. In the partridge, the narrator finds perfected animality: "so perfect is this instinct." And in this creature he also finds a sign of perfected spirituality. The narrator focuses on the bird's eyes, and in reading his description, we should recall the description of another symbol of spiritual perfection, the "earth's eye," Walden Pond: "All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The traveler does not often look into such a limpid well." The "winged cat" reveals a similar truth to the narrator. This cat is one that roams the Walden woods; she has hair so thick that it creates the appearance of wings. Thus, while remaining a wild animal, she signifies spirituality since "wings" indicate spiritual perfection (another example is the hawks in "The Bean-field").
