On Secondary Belief and the Inner Consistency of Reality

[Troelsfo]

In the discussion thread, “The Hobbit is better than The Silmarillion” @Chrysophylax Dives challenged me (in the nicest possible way! ) to examine very carefully what Tolkien has to say in On Fairy-stories about “the inner consistency of reality” and the strongly related topic of “Secondary Belief” (well, he didn't mention Seconday Belief, but, as I shall demonstrate, one cannot examine the former without investigating the latter).

I believe that this topic is worthy of a separate discussion, and therefore this post.

Part of what I used to like about the Old Plaza was the careful attention to the texts in discussion of any point, so please forgive me if I am pushing you to back up your reading of 'On Fairy-stories' by actual reference to what Tolkien says. I find what Tolkien is doing with this phrase fascinating, but cannot square it with your usage (especially not when employed against The Hobbit!)

Very well ... challenge accepted


This will, however, require a lengthy discussion including extensive quoting from Tolkien's essay, On Fairy-stories. All my quotations will be from my Kindle edition of Tree and Leaf (Tolkien, J. R. R.. Tree and Leaf: Including MYTHOPOEIA. HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.), which I will quote as OFS referencing paragraph numbers from Flieger & Anderson's (eds.) Tolkien on Fairy-stories for ease of reference. For footnotes, I will use the numbering scheme of my Kindle edition (I am, unfortunately, not able to make them superscripts). All use of bold-face in quotations is mine for highlight or emphasis.



I will start by looking more closely at the five instances in which Tolkien uses this phrase in the essay.

The first instance appears in the first paragraph in the subsection titled “Fantasy”. I begin my quotation about a third into that first paragraph.

But in recent times, in technical not normal language, Imagination has often been held to be something higher than the mere image-making, ascribed to the operations of Fancy (a reduced and depreciatory form of the older word Fantasy); an attempt is thus made to restrict, I should say misapply, Imagination to ‘the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality’.

Ridiculous though it may be for one so ill-instructed to have an opinion in this critical matter, I venture to think the verbal distinction philologically inappropriate, and the analysis inaccurate. The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind. The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’,[31] is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, sub-creation. For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-creative Art in itself and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of ‘unreality’ (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the domination of observed ‘fact’, in short of the fantastic.

[31]That is: which commands or induces Secondary Belief.
OFS §§65-6

This is the first time this topic is mentioned, and as indicated it appears twice in as many paragraphs. This is also the instance that you have mentioned in the Hobbit thread.

As you say, Tolkien contests the misapplication of “imagination” to “‘the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality’”. Tolkien opines that the phrase “imagination” means something else, and in the following paragraph he explains why it is inappropriate to use the word “imagination” for this purpose. Instead, he embraces the idea of achieving the expression that does indeed give to the sub-creation the “inner consistency of reality”, calling this “Art”, and stressing in his footnote that to achieve the expression “gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’” is the same as that which produces Secondary Belief! To understand what Tolkien means by “the inner consistency of reality”, we must therefore, perforce, investigate what he means by producing Secondary Belief, and I will turn to this after my investigation of all five instances of “inner consistency of reality” in the essay.

The third instance comes a few paragraphs later in the same subsection.

But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that ‘the inner consistency of reality’ is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of ‘reality’ with more ‘sober’ material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or merely for decoration: it remains merely ‘fanciful’. Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough – though it may already be a more potent thing than many a ‘thumbnail sketch’ or ‘transcript of life’ that receives literary praise.

To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.
OFS §§68-9

This leads into the main discussion of Fantasy as art, contrasting it with the use of the fantastic in Drama and claiming that Fantasy is best left to words. The whole of this discussion can, I would say, largely be said to point to other parts of the essay in which Tolkien in more detail discusses the inducement of Secondary Belief by written narratives (there are, as he acknowledges, other ways of achieving that state, but these are, in my opinion, not relevant for the present discussion).


The last two instances in which Tolkien uses the phrase “inner consistency of reality” are in the epilogue.

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details)[43] are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: ‘inner consistency of reality’, it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality.

[...]The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality’. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

[43]For all details may not be ‘true’: it is seldom that the ‘inspiration’ is so strong and lasting that it leavens all the lump, and does not leave much that is mere uninspired ‘invention’.
OFS §103-4

I admit that I do have some problems with the epilogue, and my reading may be coloured by that, but nonetheless ... In the first of these paragraphs, §103, Tolkien refers to the dictionary definition. Unfortunately Flieger and Anderson makes no attempt to guess at, or provide, the dictionary definition that Tolkien might have referred to, but it is clear from the context that he was dissatisfied with the definition that he was referring to. Instead, in the next paragraph, §104, we see him using it in a different sense to which he apparently agrees. Here we need the history of how he has used the phrase in the essay to parse his use, but with that, it is clear that it has to do with believability as the ability to command Secondary Belief (and distinct from the ability to command Primary Belief).



Now, with this apparatus in place, I will need to take a look at Tolkien's use of the phrase “Secondary Belief”. This concept is actually introduced earlier in the essay, in the subsection on “Children” and is mentioned four times prior to its use in the footnote quoted above. The footnote, however, consitutes an introduction of an expanded vocabulary from speaking of Secondary Belief to speaking of that quality of written fairy-stories that commands this Secondary Belief: the inner consistency of reality.

Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker’s art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful ‘sub-creator’. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.

A real enthusiast for cricket is in the enchanted state: Secondary Belief. I, when I watch a match, am on the lower level. I can achieve (more or less) willing suspension of disbelief, when I am held there and supported by some other motive that will keep away boredom: for instance, a wild, heraldic, preference for dark blue rather than light.
OFS §§50-1

This is arguably the most crucial couple of paragraphs of the whole essay for understanding Tolkien concepts of sub-creation, Secondary Belief, and inner consistency of reality. Here, at the very introduction of these crucial terms, we are introduced to possibly the most important requirement for the achievement of this Secondary Belief in the written fairy-tale, i.e. for achieving the inner consistency of reality, namely that the sub-creator makes a Secondary World, inside which “what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.” This world is percieved as ‘true’ precisely because the sub-creator only describes things that do accord with the laws of that world – laws which the sub-creator sets up themself. It is here that the concept of an inner consistency of reality is inextractably tied to the requirement of internal coherence and consistency – of abiding by the laws that apply within the Secondary World that is being described.

This requirement, introduced where Tolkien first discusses the idea of a Secondary World (§50) having briefly introduced “sub-creation” in §28 (the next use of that word in §66 is quoted above, and the last use is in §104 shortly after the quoted bit above), becomes, by the very nature of its introduction, a necessity for commanding or inducing Secondary Belief, and thus for the inner consistency of reality. That this should be so is certainly unsurprising – it would, indeed, in my mind, be extremely surprising that Tolkien, having protested the use of imagination to “the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of realities” (Flieger & Anderson, p. 110), would apply the phrase to something that did not mean, or at the very least include, the literal meaning of the phrase: that internal consistency, which also characterises the Primary World (quantum physics, relativity and humans nothwithstanding ). To claim, thus, that this phrase, in Tolkien's usage, can be understood without the literal meaning of a coherence and consistency (according with the laws) of the sub-created Secondary World is, frankly, beyond my ability to grasp.


The final passage where Tolkien discusses these ideas in detail are, again, from the subsection on Fantasy. A little later than the paragraphs quoted above.

Now ‘Faërian Drama’ – those plays which according to abundant records the elves have often presented to men – can produce Fantasy with a realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism. As a result their usual effect (upon a man) is to go beyond Secondary Belief. If you are present at a Faërian drama you yourself are, or think that you are, bodily inside its Secondary World. The experience may be very similar to Dreaming and has (it would seem) sometimes (by men) been confounded with it. But in Faërian drama you are in a dream that some other mind is weaving, and the knowledge of that alarming fact may slip from your grasp. To experience directly a Secondary World: the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded – whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not themselves deluded. deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called. They do not live in it, though they can, perhaps, afford to spend more time at it than human artists can. The Primary World, Reality, of elves and men is the same, if differently valued and perceived.

We need a word for this elvish craft, but all the words that have been applied to it have been blurred and confused with other things. Magic is ready to hand, and I have used it above (§12), but I should not have done so: Magic should be reserved for the operations of the Magician. Art is the human process that produces by the way (it is not its only or ultimate object) Secondary Belief. Art of the same sort, if more skilled and effortless, the elves can also use, or so the reports seem to show; but the more potent and specially elvish craft I will, for lack of a less debatable word, call Enchantment. Enchantment produces a Secondary World into which both designer and spectator can enter, to the satisfaction of their senses while they are inside; but in its purity it is artistic in desire and purpose.
OFS §§74-5

Here is where I think you have a strong case for a claim that Tolkien's concepts of Secondary Belief, and hence of “inner consistency of reality” must be read as also covering this “queer 'fairy element'” into the sub-creation, and I do not protest that this is an added aspect in Tolkien's discussion, but as discussed above, I think this cannot stand alone, and I would add that that his primary sense of the inner consistency of reality is the sense in which Flieger and I have consistently ( ) used it.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

thank you @Troelsfo! The prospect of a real discussion of OFS makes me very happy. I ask only your patience: a discussion like this should be taken slowly. I need to read your post carefully, then think on it, then consult OFS, and probably then read your post again and think some more. But I'll be back.

One initial statement on my part. While (on the other thread) I challenged your reading of the essay, and while I certainly have various ideas about the essay, I do not claim to understand OFS. In fact, I find it the most puzzling and difficult text I have ever encountered. (This is why the prospect of discussing it on the Plaza is so welcome.)

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Troelsfo, having pushed you to engage with the text of OFS I will ask your pardon in penning a first considered post on this thread that provides an overview. I would not do this except that, in pondering your post, I started to understand better how the general misunderstanding of this essay among 'Tolkien scholars' has arisen. So, I'm going to sketch a potted history of the secondary literature that will serve as an introduction to my subsequent careful sifting of the text of the essay itself.

Long ago (I do not know where or when) Tom Shippey stated that OFS contains 'no philological core'. I only know this because Flieger and Anderson rather defensively note this in their introduction to the essay. Accepting Shippey's claim, Flieger and others apparently looked for a key to the essay that was not linguistic, and found it - I think - in Michael Milburn's attempt to define Tolkien's Fairy as Imagination and more generally to read OFS as a restatement of Coleridge's theory of Imagination (Tolkien Studies 7, 2010). This is to deem the theoretical contribution of the essay small - Tolkien's theory is derivative, and of use chiefly in shoring up literary criticism. But what theory the essay is held to contain is reduced to an identification of 'sub-creation' with the making of an imaginary secondary world, on which Flieger has written much, and which is where I think you come in.

Observe that Shippey's response was to snort. In his interview with Patrick Curry (JTR 2015), he says:

I was... not impressed by the remarks [in OFS] about creating a 'Secondary World.' Every writer of science fiction, even more than fantasy, knows you have to create a plausible scenario which must above all be consistent, and that one way to do this is to hint at suggestive detail which will not however be explained. There's no need to make a mystery of that.
(https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolk ... l2/iss1/4/)

Now, I think Shippey is correct on both points. Indeed, aside from any textual considerations, it seems to me that his second point is sufficient reason to discard what I will call (perhaps unfairly) the Flieger reading of OFS (she appears to be Shippey's target). However, the much more important issue concerns Shippey's original statement that OFS contains no 'philological core'.

Roughly speaking, philology is the reading and reconstruction of old texts and language. Shippey is quite correct that Tolkien is not directly engaged in such activity in his essay. But somehow all parties have tacitly conflated 'philology' and 'language': just because Tolkien is not here doing philology does not mean that he is not concerned with language. Consider this from the section 'Origins' (I apologize, I have mislaid my copy of the essay for the moment and so have lifted this off an online version without page numbers):

Of course, I do not deny, for I feel strongly, the fascination of the desire to unravel the intricately knotted and ramified history of the branches on the Tree of Tales. It is closely connected with the philologists' study of the tangled skein of Language, of which I know some small pieces. But even with regard to language it seems to me that the essential quality and aptitudes of a given language in a living moment is both more important to seize and far more difficult to make explicit than its linear history. So with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them.

This is not philology, but the first part (and, I would argue, the second) is about language - indeed, Tolkien is articulating that new perception of language that grounded the transformation of comparative philology into modern linguistics in the 1920s and 1930s. Consider Gandalf's response to Bilbo's 'Good morning!': What do you mean? The wizard's question is not a philological question; but it is a question about language. As in The Hobbit, as also in 'A Secret Vice', so in OFS we have before us an exercise in or illumination of what we might call Tolkien's linguistic theory - which is obviously related to, indeed intimately bound up in, yet nevertheless distinct from his philology.

So ultimately, what I claim is that at the heart of OFS is what one might call a linguistic core - more precisely, an idea of the relationship between expression (language) and imagination. This is the context of my subsequent engagement with you as to what Tolkien in his essay meant by 'the inner consistency of reality'.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Troelsfo,

First let me thank you again for this opportunity of discussing OFS, which is for me a rare pleasure. As a general remark, I find your reading of the essay overly rational, by which I mean that you seem to overlook that Tolkien is concerned with art and not science and, as such, desire and wish are key to all his concepts, including ‘belief.’ I will elaborate on this in a subsequent post, because here I will confine my attention to the first part of your post and deal only with ‘the inner consistency of reality’.

Let me summarize the five usages – anyone who wishes to read in full should turn to Troelsfo’s first post:

• 1. Imagination has been misapplied to mean ‘the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality.’
  2. Expression = Art = gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’
  3. The ‘inner consistency of reality’ is harder to produce the more unlike the images are to the primary world.
  4. Achievement of the dictionary definition ‘inner consistency of reality’ suggests that the secondary world in some way partakes of reality.
  5. The Gospels have the ‘inner consistency of reality’ – Art has the convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation.

First, to clear up a couple of things in your commentary. On 4 and 5 you say:

Unfortunately Flieger and Anderson makes no attempt to guess at, or provide, the dictionary definition that Tolkien might have referred to, but it is clear from the context that he was dissatisfied with the definition that he was referring to.

Instead, in the next paragraph, §104, we see him using it in a different sense to which he apparently agrees.

Flieger and Anderson do not provide the dictionary definition here because they have already provided it for the first usage of the term (1) – Tolkien is quoting (or slightly misquoting) the first edition OED entry on ‘Fancy’ where, following Coleridge, in later usage ‘imagination’ is said to be “the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistencies of realities." As I pointed out on the other thread, each of the five times Tolkien uses the phrase he places it in quotation marks, indicating that he is using the same dictionary definition.

It is a nice irony that you, who champion the principle of ‘consistency’ in a secondary world, here read Tolkien’s words as inconsistent. But there is no ‘different sense’ of the phrase in usages 4 and 5, or at least, I am at a loss to understand how you can discern a difference.

Once we accept that the phrase carries the same meaning in each of the five usages, any argument to my mind is over, for usages 4 and 5 make clear that Tolkien is not referring to the coherence or consistency (the laws of physics) of a secondary world but, rather, to a quality in the fantasy that captures some quality of reality. I’d suggest that this usage complements his discussion of ‘recovery’ and has at root a (profoundly interesting) idea that departing from reality by way of fantasy leads to insight into reality - because the fantasy in some queer way ‘partakes of reality’.

But it would be a shame to stop here, so in preparation for a subsequent post on Secondary Belief I will make a few observations about what Tolkien is doing with the dictionary phrase. On usage 1, you write:

Tolkien opines that the phrase “imagination” means something else, and in the following paragraph he explains why it is inappropriate to use the word “imagination” for this purpose.

Forgive me, but this is not the road to understanding the essay. We have to be more precise – what is this ‘something else’? What is the purpose of the distinction that Tolkien is drawing? And why is he engaging with the OED? If we don’t read the whole essay carefully we fall into the usual pitfall of selecting one passage, projecting our ideas into it, and ignoring the fact that the other parts of the essay contradict our projection. When reading OFS the golden rule seems to me to be: Don’t be hasty!

Some scattered observations. First, that the phrase we are discussing is derived from the OED fits with the general engagement with the dictionary throughout the essay – from the initial complaint about the definitions of ‘fairy’ and ‘fairy story’ through to the statement that Fairy is indescribable and no definition is possible, through to the arrogation of the powers of Humpty-Dumpty to give what is in effect a definition of ‘Fantasy’. Ultimately, to gain understanding of OFS we must establish the relationship of the arguments to the very idea of a dictionary definition.

Second, why does Tolkien single out this definition of Imagination in the OED? Let’s look at usage 1 again:

… an attempt is thus made to restrict, I should say misapply, Imagination to ‘the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality’".

It is worth pondering the dictionary definition. Assume I make in my mind an image of a flying-cat. The flying-cat exists in my mind but not in reality. Now assume I have ‘the power’ to give to this flying-cat ‘the inner consistency of reality’ – I use this power and the cat becomes real! If an ideal cat truly has ‘the inner consistency of reality’ it is no longer an ideal cat but an actual cat.

In the first instance, Tolkien winks at us as he draws our attention to an OED-writer who has confused wish and reality. That is why in usage 2 Tolkien carefully places ‘seems’ in parentheses: Art (expression) “gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’".

But Tolkien seizes on this loose use of language because he perceives that the dictionary-writer has inadvertently given expression to "the primal desire at the heart of Faërie: the realization, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder” (35).

So, by introducing this OED quotation Tolkien is doing two things:

• 1. He is arguing against the idea of art, associated with Coleridge, that identifies art with imagination and positing, instead, that it is expression (language) that gives (or seems to give) ‘the inner consistency of reality’.
  
  2. He is reiterating that the ‘primal desire’ that drives the artist (and us, the readers) is an impossible goal – making imagined wonder real. (This is why he talks of sub-creation and not Creation – God can make reality, we can only make a semblance.)

Both points require unpacking. On the second I will merely say (for now) that, just as with the very idea of dictionary definition, so what Tolkien is doing with ‘the inner consistency of reality’ cannot be fully understood without looking also at his discussion of realizing imagined wonder - and the profound wish to realize it - elsewhere in the essay.

On the first point I will here say a little because it leads into the discussion of ‘belief’ in the second part of your post. Your comment on usage 1, again:

Tolkien opines that the phrase “imagination” means something else, and in the following paragraph he explains why it is inappropriate to use the word “imagination” for this purpose.

Let’s get clear on the key terms here, for which I will go all the way back to the concluding sentences of ‘A Secret Vice’:

Language has both strengthened imagination and been freed by it. Who shall say whether the free adjective has created images bizarre and beautiful, or the adjective been freed by strange and beautiful pictures in the mind? (34)

OFS develops this line of thought, first in the account of fairy elements in ‘Origins’, and then in the section ‘Fantasy’ where the first 3 usages of our phrase are found. The crucial point to observe is the way that OFS weaves together the images in the mind, on the one hand, and the use of language on the other. Taken together, OFS gives us something like the following:

(i) Linguistic invention by mixing and matching adjectives and nouns generates a strange image, a queer picture in the mind.
(ii) The imagination perceives the image and grasps its implication.
(iii) The artist turns again to language, now placing the ‘fairy element’ in its proper context, that is, the realm of story in which it seems to have its being.

This may seem a long way from the notions of primary belief, secondary belief, and delusion, but it is in fact the foundation for understanding their place in the essay. For when we turn to ‘secondary belief’ (and delusion) what we are looking at is a strange communication between author and reader, such that the language of the author (i) and (iii) work on the imagination of the reader (ii). In other words, the meaning of ‘Secondary Belief’ is to be understood in relation to this framework. I will elaborate on this in a subsequent post.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Troelsfo,

I had intended to clarify the nature of ‘belief’ in Tolkien’s essay, but reading over your original post again I feel the need to make a couple of more basic points. First, to clarify what I am not saying:

… it would, indeed, in my mind, be extremely surprising that Tolkien, having protested the use of imagination to “the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of realities” (Flieger & Anderson, p. 110), would apply the phrase to something that did not mean, or at the very least include, the literal meaning of the phrase: that internal consistency, which also characterises the Primary World… To claim, thus, that this phrase, in Tolkien's usage, can be understood without the literal meaning of a coherence and consistency (according with the laws) of the sub-created Secondary World is, frankly, beyond my ability to grasp.

I have never claimed that internal coherence has no place in the making of a Secondary World (though Bombadil should give pause for thought on that). My position is that of Shippey: the point is trivial and does not in itself warrant any song and dance. But where Shippy finds no substantial point in the essay, I say that by focusing on this trivial point you and him overlook the substance of OFS.

You say of the passage in ‘Children’:

Here, at the very introduction of these crucial terms, we are introduced to possibly the most important requirement for the achievement of this Secondary Belief in the written fairy-tale, i.e. for achieving the inner consistency of reality, namely that the sub-creator makes a Secondary World, inside which “what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.” (My emphasis)

To clarify, ‘Secondary Belief’ and 'Secondary World' are not terms exclusive to the reading of fairy-stories. As I understand OFS, any story makes a ‘Secondary World’ in which the imagination of the reader may enter. And this is, I think, also Shippey’s position. And if this is all that Tolkien is saying then Shippey would be quite correct to complain that OFS is a pointless exercise. But what both you and Shippey overlook is precisely the ‘fairy element.’ Look at usage 3, which you quote above:

Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that ‘the inner consistency of reality’ is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of ‘reality’ with more ‘sober’ material.

Fantasy may be more sub-creative, but the first sentence implies that other stories are also sub-creative. Tolkien’s point is that the fantasy artist is faced with the peculiar challenge of making a Secondary World in which the queer fairy elements appear credible.

My position is not that Tolkien denies that coherency is important (presumably, he also thought that a story in which people walk must involve space). My point is that his use of the phrase ‘inner consistency of reality’ cannot be properly understood without recourse to the fairy elements. Your reading overlooks the significance of the fairy elements.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Now, with this apparatus in place, I will need to take a look at Tolkien's use of the phrase “Secondary Belief”. This concept is actually introduced earlier in the essay, in the subsection on “Children”...

... What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful ‘sub-creator’. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. ...
A real enthusiast for cricket is in the enchanted state: Secondary Belief. ...
OFS §§50-1

This is arguably the most crucial couple of paragraphs of the whole essay for understanding Tolkien concepts of sub-creation, Secondary Belief, and inner consistency of reality.

Though I do not think they explain the dictionary phrase about the 'inner consistency of reality' as you do, I would agree as to the importance of these two paragraphs. And while I have criticized Flieger's dismal reading of The Hobbit, I have nothing but praise for the editorial work that she and Anderson have done with On Fairy-stories. One key they provide is found on pages 136-145, where they record alterations that J.R.R. Tolkien made at the proof stage in December 1946. Consider this passage, as it stood in the gallery proofs (the published version is the last quotation in your OP):

That is Art for them. They [elves] do not live in it, though they can, perhaps, afford to spend more time at it. The Primary World, Reality, of elves and men is the same, if differently valued and perceived.
So we may observe the difference between Art, Enchantment, and Wizardry. Art is the human process that produces by the way (it is not its only or ultimate object) Secondary Belief; Enchantment is the elvish craft that produces a Secondary World into which artist and audience can actually enter, and which upon a man may work a delusory belief; Wizardry produces (or desires or pretends to produce) a real alteration in the Primary World. Wizardry is not an art in the aesthetic sense, but allied to Science: Science as a technique, rather than an investigation of physical Truth. Fantasy is that form of human art which when successful comes closest to the elvish. To all these things, Enchantment and Magic are loosely applied. It is to the third only that Magic properly applies.

Flieger and Anderson record intense revision before the version you give above was arrived at, which revisions include the following sentence as part of a paragraph that was struck through even before the revision it was part of was rejected:

But to the effects of human art neither the words enchantment nor magic should be applied, even by a metaphor: the metaphor is too dangerous.

What is really astonishing to see here is Tolkien hesitating to express - because too dangerous - the capital thesis of his essay (which applies these fairy-tale terms to mortal art) and his great fairy story (which so very carefully works with this metaphor)! But in terms of our debate, what these records seem to reveal is a gap between an elvish craft of Secondary World making and a mortal Art that generates Secondary Belief. In the published essay this gap is largely bridged - but not so completely as you might think and the first of these paragraphs might suggest. I'd suggest that the phrase 'inner consistency of reality' as Tolkien uses it in his essay has more to do with bridging this gap than it does some axiom of non-contradiction, i.e., principle of coherence. (Perhaps you are giving some specialist elvish meaning of the term?)

On reflection, in my replies to your OP I should have followed the order of OFS and began with this point and moved from this gap through the footnote to the phrase 'the inner consistency of reality.' But I am sure you can work it out.

[Romeran]

I've only had a chance to skim this thread and responses but I hope to make a more thorough read through this weekend. The Hobbit is one of my favorite children's stories so I'm surprised to see such a negative opinion of it from some notable Tolkien scholars. I'll certainly concede that it's no where near the level of The Lord of the Rings, but at the same time it's not really supposed to be, if you ask me. I'll add more qualified thoughts once I've had a chance to thread through @Troelsfo's and @Chrysophylax Dives's excellent discussions.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Damn! I was sure there was a conversation here. I'm closing off on this thread but I want to add a last word for those who are interested in the relationship between OFS and Arda.

OFS is at its core an account of art in which human art (sub-creation) is conceived and measured in relation to elvish art (sub-creation) and, ultimately, divine art (Creation). The essay therefore provides a theory of what it means to make a fairy story but rests upon an idea of what it means for an elvish craftsman to make the Silmarils or the Rings of Power. At the same time, because Tolkien draws out art in relation to its opposite - 'magic' or science that seeks power and control, OFS contains a theory of what it means that Sauron forged the One and what it means for Saruman or Wormtongue to corrupt the hearts of others by their voices; and for that matter, what it means for us today to be corrupted by propaganda.

It is no accident that Tolkien revised both the Ainulindalë and the account of the making of the Silmarils after composing OFS (and finishing LOTR), bringing both into line with the theory of Art set out in OFS.

… it is held that being themselves in Time they [the Valar] experienced the making as a new thing, differing in this experience little, save in degree of power and art, from the makers or artists among the Incarnate. (NoMe p. 292.)

[Troelsfo]

Damn! I was sure there was a conversation here. I'm closing off on this thread but I want to add a last word for those who are interested in the relationship between OFS and Arda.

My apologies, Simon!

Also, I apologise for posting here without contributing to the discussion, but I think some explanation of my disappearance is warranted.

Towards the end of January or early February, I ended up being caught up in way too much work (of the kind that pays the rent and, not least, my Tolkien purchases) for too long time, and very nearly breaking down in the weeks after Easter. While I have managed to pull through without being sent off work sick, I am still in the process of recovering – of rebuilding enough energy to do more than just get by.

I hope to be able to return to this conversation in due time – probably not this week or the next, but at least before summer turns to autumn.

[Eldy Dunami]

It's good to hear from you again, @Troelsfo. While I don't know the specifics of your situation, I can relate to the general experience of stuff that needs recovering from, and I'm glad to hear you seem to have pulled through the worst of it. Take as much time as you need, but know I'll be looking forward to seeing your Lore posts again whenever you're ready. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

[Saranna]

@Troelsfo sorry to hear of your troubled times; I'm having some too, life sometimes just blows up on us. Keep taking care and getting well - thinking of you medear.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Damn! I was sure there was a conversation here. I'm closing off on this thread but I want to add a last word for those who are interested in the relationship between OFS and Arda.

My apologies, Simon!

Also, I apologise for posting here without contributing to the discussion, but I think some explanation of my disappearance is warranted.

Towards the end of January or early February, I ended up being caught up in way too much work (of the kind that pays the rent and, not least, my Tolkien purchases) for too long time, and very nearly breaking down in the weeks after Easter. While I have managed to pull through without being sent off work sick, I am still in the process of recovering – of rebuilding enough energy to do more than just get by.

I hope to be able to return to this conversation in due time – probably not this week or the next, but at least before summer turns to autumn.

My sincere apologies Troels!
I must confess that this aborted conversation was the context of my recent explosion of irritation because I felt that with your recent contribution on the question of the gender of the Ainur you were doing the same thing - posting the Lore (with which i disagreed) and then disappearing.
So I lost my temper and posted a lot in annoyance. Actually, I hold to what I have said in recent posts about Lore and History and Tradition. But I sincerely apologize for the personal animus. The irony is deep because I have been banging on about History and yet failed to scroll down and locate this old thread - a failure of basic historical research!
I do hope you are fully recovered now, and also hope (most profoundly) that we will be reading more of your posts on the plaza. The reason I reacted so strongly recently is because your authority is so great on this site - and rightly so.
My only excuse is that I have myself been through a terrible time this last year with a very serious health issue concerning one of my children, still ongoing. This is why I disappeared for a long time from this site and so never saw this reply (my notifications were turned off; but I should have searced for it).

To be clear, I do stand behind my recent campaign to drag Lore into the 21st century. But I really, really apologize for my tone of righteous ire and wish there was an icon for egg on one's face.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

And to hijack the OP even further. @Troelsfo, i think maybe you don't appreciate how small is the plaza today. It is still alive but it is no magnet for outsiders as it used to be. I was recalling my brief time on the Old Plaza and how some nasty trolling was dealt with very well. The whole Tolkien discussion then was buzzing. But today in the plaza its just a few folks talking about their thing. And to be perfectly blunt, from a Lore perspective, they usually do their thing somewhere else. Lore today is just the lost realm, the realm that time forgot. So Lorists, young and old, gotta be a bit humble (a bit).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Also, I cannot believe I wrote so much on 'On Fairy-stories'! Nobody will ever read that and i cannot say I blame you, Troels, for not wading through it (now, with age and stairs, I have learned to pace myself better).