 The subordinate ends of civil law are security, subsistence, abundance, and equality, in this order of priority. “The more perfect enjoyment is in all these respects”, Bentham wrote, “the greater is the sum of social happiness: and especially of that happiness which depends upon the laws” (1840 [1864], I, 96). As we have seen, security is maintained by laws that protect property and the expectations derived from ownership, and uphold the contracts that facilitate the trade in goods and services. Subsistence and abundance are also derived from this source. When an overall abundance exists but not all enjoy the necessary means of subsistence, then legislative intervention may be conducted in accordance with the “disappointment-prevention principle”, such as when the state takes ownership of an estate for which there is no legitimate heir (122–23), or when a tax on income or property can be introduced without materially detracting from a person’s expectations, and the funds accrued used to provide food and basic services to those in need. Based on this redistribution of wealth, a degree of equalization is also achieved (Kelly 1990, 191–97), an objective entirely consistent with the view that, properly understood, the utility principle entails a presumption in favour of an equal distribution, unless there is compelling empirical evidence that utility would not be served by such a policy. As Bentham put it in Leading Principles of a Constitutional Code, “the more remote from equality are the shares … the less is the sum of felicity produced by the sum of those shares” (1838–43, II, 276).