3. Rousseau develops his idea of a General Will by the contrast which he draws between the General Will and the Will of All. [1] The General Will aims at a common interest; and it is this community of interest, and not the number of votes in which it may find expression, which in truth “generalises the will.” [2] The Will of All aims at private interest as such (“_l’intérêt privé_”) and is only a sum of particular wills. Only, Rousseau fancies, if you let the particular wills fight it out freely, their differences are likely to cancel each other, and the General Will to make itself felt, like any pervading factor through a chaos of indefinite variations. [1] _Contrat Social_, II. iii. [2] _Ib._ II. iv.; cf. above. The important point in the idea of the Will of All” lies in its being “a sum” of “particulars,” as opposed to something common or general in its nature. Thus, in the limiting case, you may have a unanimous vote in favour of a certain course of action, and yet the voters may severally have been determined by aims and considerations which {112} Rousseau would not admit to be capable of entering at all into a determination of the General Will. For a private affair _as such_ is incapable in Rousseau’s view of being made the subject of law, that is of an act of the General Will. Such an act must be general, not only in the number of votes (which, as we have seen, is the less important factor), but in the nature of its subject-matter, which must be, as we should say, a question of genuine public interest. [1] Now, when men’s minds leave out of sight the public or truly general aspect of a question, and are determined, each of them severally, by the expected consequences to himself as a private individual; then, though all may practically agree in the decision which is arrived at, yet such a decision is founded on no view of truly public interest, but is what Rousseau calls “a sum of particular wills.” The distinction between such a sum of wills, and a will that aims at a truly common interest or good, rests upon that fundamental contrast between a mere aggregate and an organic unity, which is embodied in the opposing views of society which we have been discussing. Pushed to extremes, it might raise a difficulty for those who are not familiar with the logical distinction between a Judgment of Allness and a true Universal Judgment. [2] What harm can there be, it may be asked, in my voting according to the effect a measure will have upon my affairs, if everyone else is allowed to vote according to the effect it will have upon his affairs, especially as in the extreme case suggested, the result is that we are all agreed? What can be more for the general {113} interest than a decision in which every particular interest is satisfied? On the mere basis of comparative generality, as estimated by number, there is plainly no answer to this objection. We meet here with another instance of the difficulties which arise from working with the notion