In my Utility and Democracy, I noted that an important difference between the pre-democratic and post-democratic Bentham consisted in his view of the relationship between property and the franchise. In the earlier phase of his career, he feared that the non-propertied, if given the vote, would in effect destroy civilized life by insisting on a redistribution of property, while in the latter phase he dismissed this threat as illusory and pointed to the United States of America as a functioning large-scale democracy where property was secure.1 While there is no reason to question this account, there is arguably more to be said about how Bentham regarded the problem of bad government, or misrule, and the solution, in terms of the possession of intellectual aptitude – in other words, the possession of knowledge and judgement – one of the branches of appropriate aptitude. An individual possessed intellectual aptitude when he had the relevant knowledge and judgement to promote the general or universal interest, moral aptitude when he was motivated to do so, and active aptitude when he performed the relevant actions.