Thoreau's Lumberjack

An overzealous commitment of humanism leads to a sharp man/nature duality, or to a polarity of the higher human spirit versus the lower natural body. 

In some parts of Thoreau's Walden, such a duality is evident. In a language that echoes the sharp dualism of the Christian faith, Thoreau speaks of the transcendental mind "descending" into the natural body to "redeem" it (349). He even finds an inverse ratio between the body and the soul. "The animal in us," says he, "awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers." He quotes Mencius to the effect that the difference between man and the brute is very slim. In the raging battle within man, where the human side is pitted against the animal side, ordinary people very soon lose the distinctly human, while "superior men preserve it carefully" (346).

PURE CLASSISM
The duality at times turns into a sharp polarity where nature inspires Thoreau's deepest fears, if not his contempt. The Canadian woodchopper, "a simple natural man," (227) was so absorbed in nature that Thoreau painted him as being unable to absorb "the spiritual view of things." To Thoreau, "the highest that he appeared to conceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might except an animal to appreciate" (279).

It is this disdain for nature that led Thoreau in "Higher Laws" to speak with some remorse about the inability to expel "the reptile and sensual" aspects of human nature, drawing analogies from physical nature to communicate his disgust. "It is like the worms, says he, "which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies (346). Hostility and disdain create the desire for radical transcendence which becomes quite pronounced when Thoreau asserts that "nature is hard to overcome but she must be overcome" (348).