Rousseau_contrat-social

clear analogy, we may say the same of the relation of the government to
the magistrates.
But the total force of the government, being always that of the State,
is invariable; so that, the more of this force it expends on its own
members, the less it has left to employ on the whole people.
The more numerous the magistrates, therefore, the weaker the government.
This principle being fundamental, we must do our best to make it clear.
In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially
different wills: first, the private will of the individual, tending only
to his personal advantage; secondly, the common will of the magistrates,
which is relative solely to the advantage of the prince, and may be
called corporate will, being general in relation to the government, and
particular in relation to the State, of which the government forms part;
and, in the third place, the will of the people or the sovereign will,
which is general both in relation to the State regarded as the whole,
and to the government regarded as a part of the whole.
In a perfect act of legislation, the individual or particular will
should be at zero; the corporate will belonging to the government should
occupy a very subordinate position; and, consequently, the general or
sovereign will should always predominate and should be the sole guide of
all the rest.
According to the natural order, on the other hand, these different wills
become more active in proportion as they are concentrated. Thus, the
general will is always the weakest, the corporate will second, and the
individual will strongest of all: so that, in the government, each
member is first of all himself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen --
in an order exactly the reverse of what the social system requires.
This granted, if the whole government is in the hands of one man, the
particular and the corporate will are wholly united, and consequently
the latter is at its highest possible degree of intensity. But, as the
use to which the force is put depends on the degree reached by the will,
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