Even though the intricacies of the nervous system should be capable of getting round this objection, there remain sufficient other reasons why indulgence in verse of this character should be condemned. There can be no doubt whatever that the value of the experience which results from it is small. On a pleasure theory of value there might well be doubt, since those who do enjoy it certainly appear to enjoy it in a high degree. But on the theory here maintained, the fact that those who have passed through the stage of enjoying the _Poems of Passion_ to that of enjoying the bulk of the contents of the _Golden Treasury_, for example, do not return, settles the matter. We must bear in mind, of course, the conditions which have to be satisfied before this test is conclusive. That a man who has passed through the stage of drinking nothing but beer to the stage of drinking nothing but brandy rarely returns, does not prove that brandy is the better drink. It merely proves that it is the more efficient intoxicant. We have to ask in applying the test what the responses in question are, and in the case of poetry they are so varied, so representative of all the activities of life, that actual universal preference on the part of those who have tried both kinds fairly is the same (on our view) as superiority in value of the one over the other. Keats, by universal qualified opinion, is a more efficient poet than Wilcox, and that is the same thing as saying that his works are more valuable. [67] A specimen: “The thoughtful man, the man on business bent, wends his way to Wembley with definite purpose. He seeketh knowledge, desireth increase of commerce or willeth to study new epoch-making inventions.”—_Official Advertisement_. CHAPTER XXVI Judgment and Divergent Readings _The Prime Minister_—The misunderstanding—in so far as it is a misunderstanding—is purely a misunderstanding. . . . _The Leader of the Opposition_—With the utmost goodwill on this side, I find myself with far less grasp of the whole subject than I had. . . .—_The Times_, 8th July 1924. Ambiguity in a poem, as with any other communication, may be the fault of the poet or of the reader. The ambiguities due to erratic reading are as important for criticism as others, and practically more troublesome. There are strong social incentives for overlooking them. Talking to one another we assume, in nine cases out of ten like the merest simpletons, that our readings agree, and that when we differ in our opinions it is something else, not our experiences but our judgments about them which are at variance. Most discussion about works of art is waste of time _as communication_ for this reason. It may, of course, have great value as a means by which people may severally develop their own reactions.