To Hayek, like Meyer, freedom and tradition were fused. "Paradoxical as it may appear, it is probably true that a successful free society will always in large measure be a tradition-bound society," for a free society needs customs, laws and institutions whose observance is a "necessary condition" for freedom. Freedom is the means but the "values into which we are born supplies the ends which our reason must serve". This fusion was believed essential not only to social life but to thought, science and to reason itself. Without that dualism, there would have been no historical freedom. It was not a coincidence that Hayek was the one who first led Meyer to arrive at his mature philosophy.