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Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 7detachment with the way in which the duke’s understanding is always regulatedby his loving nature, Shakespeare suggests that thought must servesomething beyond itself in order to be truly useful. This is not, of course,to deny that philosophical conversation forms an enjoyable element of theduke’s friendship with Jaques, just as it does in Celia’s relationships withTouchstone and Rosalind.In contrast to Jaques, as we have seen, Touchstone aims to benefit fromhis recurrent musings. He says to Corin of the shepherd’s life that “in respectof itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught”(3.2.12–14). This seeming nonsense in fact points to the difficulty of arrivingat a firm sense of what is good in itself, regardless of social status. Touchstonegoes on to say that the shepherd’s life is good in that it is “solitary” and “in thefields,” but adds that it seems merely “private” or “not in the court” when contrastedwith his previous existence (3.2.15–20). The shepherd’s life certainlyinvolves paring down one’s physical needs, but again it is the contrast withthe “plenty” of the court which causes discontent, rather than the abstemiousdiet itself (3.2.19–21). Touchstone sees that we involve ourselves in ceaselesscomparisons, which distract us from life’s intrinsic joys. This is clearly aninternal dialogue that he is rehearsing, which suggests that he is constantlyemploying philosophy—to which he refers twice in this scene for the firsttime (3.2.21, 3.2.32)—to restrain both his ambitions and his physical desires.Touchstone’s attempt to be fully aware of the demands of his own nature at alltimes means that he remains remarkably unaffected by religious and moraltraditions, as is shown by his initial willingness to be married under a tree(3.3.65–66). Similarly Rosalind sees inconstancy as a sign of weakness ratherthan immorality; the mark of a “sheep’s heart” (3.2.423–24). She does refer toreligion at one point, but only in order to convey the intensity of Orlando’skisses, which are “as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread” (3.4.13–14).On a superficial level we are clearly invited to laugh at Touchstone’s lowstandards when he decides to court Audrey, a poor and ugly farm laborer,but one of the most intelligent critics of the play realizes that Touchstonehas genuinely been “thrown down” by “love’s order” with all its “duties ofservice in just the same way as Orlando and Rosalind.” 11 Another uses thecompliment Celia pays Touchstone when she declares emphatically that hewill follow her “o’er the wide world” to show that “he is a man to be dependedon,” and, unlike many critics, takes absolutely seriously the possibility that11John Russell Brown, “Love’s Order and the Judgment of As You Like It,” in Twentieth Century Interpretationsof “As You Like It,” ed. Jay L. Halio (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968), 81–82.