 As we noted earlier, Mill does not defend representative democracy as ideal under all historical and social circumstances. There are some social circumstances, he thinks, in which democracy will not promote the common good. These are backward states of society in which most citizens are unfit to rule, because they lack necessary ingredients of the culture of autonomy to exercise decision-making authority responsibly. They lack discipline, or education, or an active and independent character. Different forms of government are appropriate for such backward states of advancement. In particular, Mill thinks that benevolent rule by an enlightened one or few, which aimed at the common good, would be better suited for such societies (415–18). Here, Mill is introducing a scope limitation on the defense of political rights that he recognized explicitly in his defense of basic liberties in On Liberty (I 10). There are important practical questions, which Mill does not address very clearly, about which societies cross this threshold of capacity for improvement by free inquiry and political rights. We might reasonably disagree with Mill about what the competence threshold is and which societies satisfy   it.[2]   But he does make clear that political participation, like free inquiry, is important as a necessary condition for the exercise of our higher capacities and has value only when a threshold level of normative competence is met.