…But public affairs become actually public only when they arc no longer the affair of an individual but of society.”

Do you think there’s an affinity here with the distinction between volonté de tous and volonté générale in Rousseau?

This is mentioned inthis book, where (in chapter 7) the author makes the suggestion of a distinction between universality and generality, or “abstract universality and the universality of the concept”. The former is like Locke’s Idea, and involves a reduction in content, whilst the latter are “not universals merely in the sense of higher genera” and do not involve a “diminuation in content”.

I’ll quote the example he gives:

“The latter conception also allows us to say some very simple things, such as that it is the case that tigers have four legs, without any fear of contradiction from inconveniently intrusive three-legged tigers. It enables us to say there is something wrong with such a beast, wheras Locke would merely say it was different.” [My italics]