A third objection of Ihering’s, i.e. that by a limitation of rights as affecting spheres of will, even the most senseless dispositions of will must be allowed legal validity (p. 325), this offers, after what has been said, hardly any further difficulty. Certainly many a foolish disposition of will must be allowed. Were the State not to admit this, then it alone would possess a definitive right of disposal; all private right would be at an end. So long as not merely subjects, but also governments, are liable to commit acts of foolishness, such an extension of the power of the State cannot be recommended. For the rest, just as secondary ethical rules in general suffer exceptions, and in particular expropriations in the case of private owners are frequently necessary, so also it is clear and to be admitted without contradiction, that senseless dispositions or dispositions which have evidently lost all meaning and reference to the highest practical good can be annulled by the State. Regard for the highest practical good is here, as is the case of every other so-called collision of duties, decisive. [46] (_p. 29_). That a law, which in and for itself is bad and contrary to nature, however condemnable from an ethical point of view, and its modification urgently necessary, may yet in many cases receive a provisional sanction from the reason, this has long been recognized and made clear, as e.g. by Bentham in his _Traités de Législation civ. et pén._ In antiquity Socrates, who deemed himself worthy to be feasted in the Prytaneum, died for the sake of this conviction. The positive legal code, despite all its defects, creates a condition of things which is better than anarchy, and since each act of insubordination to the law threatens to injure its force in general, so in those circumstances brought about by the law itself, it may be that provisionally and for the individual a mode of action even from the rational standpoint is right, which, apart from this, would be in no way justifiable. All this results without doubt from the relativity of the secondary ethical rules, which will be treated later. It may be added that errors respecting the laws of positive morality (a point shortly to be discussed in the lecture) in a similar way demand, under certain circumstances, to be taken into account. It dare not, on the other hand, be overlooked that there are here limits, and that the saying: “We ought to obey God rather than man,” may not, in its free and sublime range, be allowed to suffer injury. [47] (_p. 29_). Heraclitus of Ephesus (B.C. 500), the oldest of the Greek philosophers, of whose philosophy we possess rather extensive fragments. [48] (_p. 31_). Ihering, _Der Zweck im Recht_, vol. ii. p. 119, and other passages. [49] (_p. 31_). _Politics_, vol. i. chap. 5. [50] (_p. 31_). _Nic. Ethics_, v. 14, p. 1137 b. 13. _Politics_, iii. and iv.