6.123 Clearly the laws of logic cannot in their turn be subject to laws of
logic. (There is not, as Russell thought, a special law of contradiction
for each 'type'; one law is enough, since it is not applied to itself.)
6.1231 The mark of a logical proposition is not general validity. To be
general means no more than to be accidentally valid for all things. An
ungeneralized proposition can be tautological just as well as a generalized
one.
6.1232 The general validity of logic might be called essential, in contrast
with the accidental general validity of such propositions as 'All men are
mortal'. Propositions like Russell's 'axiom of reducibility' are not
logical propositions, and this explains our feeling that, even if they were
true, their truth could only be the result of a fortunate accident.
6.1233 It is possible to imagine a world in which the axiom of reducibility
is not valid. It is clear, however, that logic has nothing to do with the
question whether our world really is like that or not.
6.124 The propositions of logic describe the scaffolding of the world, or
rather they represent it. They have no 'subject-matter'. They presuppose
that names have meaning and elementary propositions sense; and that is
their connexion with the world. It is clear that something about the world
must be indicated by the fact that certain combinations of symbols--whose
essence involves the possession of a determinate character--are
tautologies.
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