transmutation

If, like his contemporaries, Thoreau had difficulty thinking evolution from within progressionism, by the time of Walden "s extensive "remaking," beginning "sometime in 1852," he had also become deeply interested in the transmutationist account of a natural history that included humankind.

First, the "savage delight" and desire to internalize the "wildness" represented by the woodchuck "stealing across my path," described at the beginning of "Higher Laws," introduces a transmutationist narrative that runs counter to the more visible progressionist one (210).