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Fulfillment in As You Like It1 2 1which can only be derived from an awareness of his own deepest longings. 16 Itis not to descend into relativism, however, to say that one’s idea of what is ultimatelyfulfilling may be partly influenced or distorted by one’s experiences.Modern attachment theory postulates a system of “attachment behaviourwith its own dynamics distinct from the behaviour and dynamics of eitherfeeding or sex, the two sources of human motivation for long widely regardedas the most fundamental.” 17 Here science has been led to a conception ofhuman nature which is at odds with the main tradition of modernism itself,in that the longing for close attachments just for their own sake is seen asbeing so strong that it often overshadows the baser impulses so much emphasizedby the fathers of modernism.When thwarted or stunted, it is argued, this yearning can distort ourwhole way of thinking and feeling. Thus, although Jaques thinks that hehas reformed, he still often behaves tyrannically, as we have seen. The dukefeels his friend has only superficially shed the “embossed sores” which heacquired in his former life as a “brutish” libertine, so that even though nowadayshe undoubtedly wants to “do but good” there is a danger that withoutmeaning to he will still “disgorge” his “evils” even as he is trying to benefitsociety (2.7.63–69). Shakespeare’s suggestion is that if we are, as it were, readingthe world off from our own souls, we must first make sure that they arewholesome and harmonious—by which he means rooted in strong attachments—lestour intuitions regarding human nature be hopelessly skewed.Perhaps one can see clearly that Hymen is the “god of every town” only if ableoneself to sense his divinity, at least dimly and intuitively, in the first place. Itis significant that Shakespeare draws heavily on the traditional link betweendeep thought and melancholia in presenting the only purely contemplativecharacter in any of his plays.All of this is not to forget Touchstone’s regret at Audrey’s lack of educationor the evident enjoyment of philosophical conversations shown by allthe more intelligent characters in the play, which clearly suggests that philosophycan become an enjoyable ingredient of The Good Life, even if it isnot absolutely essential to it. Indeed, Shakespeare could not have meditatedso deeply on these matters were he not himself intensely curious. Nevertheless,as we see even more clearly in Love’s Labour’s Lost, he directly arguesagainst what he sees as an immoderate pursuit of philosophy. Indeed, since16Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Statesman: The Web of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 187.17John Bowlby, A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory (London: Routledge, 1998), 26.