Freedom by itself has no goal, no intrinsic end. Freedom is not abstract or utopian as with the utilitarians, who also make freedom an end rather than a means. A utopia of freedom is a contradiction in terms. In a real society, traditional order and freedom can exist together only in tension. To retain the essentiality of both freedom and tradition, the solution to the dilemma is "grasping it by both horns." The solution is a synthesis of both, even in the face of those such as Leo Strauss who argue that no such synthesis is possible or even logical. Donald Devine has argued Meyer's synthesis is a first principle or axiom that is as valid as Strauss's monist first principle and relates this to Hayek's critical rationalism philosophical tradition and those he identifies with it such as Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu, John Locke, Adam Smith and Lord Acton.