before us precisely what was earlier called formal truth and distinguished from material truth. 

The latter is the truth of synthetic statements, assertions of matters of fact, and if one wishes to describe them by help of the concept of absence of contradiction, of agreement with other statements, one can do so only if one says that they may not contradict very special statements, namely just those that express "facts of immediate observation." The criterion of truth cannot be compatibility with any statements whatever, but agreement is required with certain exceptional statements which are not chosen arbitrarily at all. In other words, the criterion of absence of contradiction does not by itself suffice for material truth. It is, rather, entirely a matter of compatibility with very special peculiar statements. And for this compatibility there is no reason not to use --indeed I consider there is every justification for using the good old expression "agreement with reality." 

The astounding error of the "coherence theory" can be explained only by the fact that its defenders and expositors were thinking only of such statements as actually occur in science, and took them as their only examples. Under these conditions the relation of non?contradiction was in fact sufficient, but only because these statements are of a very special character. They have, that is, in a certain sense (to be explained presently) their "origin" in observation statements, they derive, as one may confidently say in the traditional way of speaking, "from experience." 

If one is to take coherence seriously as a general criterion of truth, then one must consider arbitrary fairy stories to be as true as a historical report, or as statements in a textbook of chemistry, provided the story is constructed in such a way that no contradiction ever arises. I can depict by help of fantasy a grotesque world full of bizarre adventures: the coherence philosopher must believe in the truth of my account provided only I take care of the mutual compatibility of my statements, and also take the precaution of avoiding any collision with the usual description of the world, by placing the scene of my story on a distant star, where no observation is possible. Indeed, strictly speaking, I don't even require this precaution; I can just as well demand that the others have to adapt themselves to my description; and not the other way around. They cannot then object that, say, this happening runs counter to the observations, for according to the coherence theory there is no question of observations, but only of the compatibility of statements. 

Since no one dreams of holding the statements of