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Great events are taking place. We have no navy and no ambassadors but we have opinion. It is essential to discuss public views on the matters now under consideration, in order to coordinate individual negotiations and private initiatives and to place them under public control. Without it, and without public opinion to steer our actions, we are in danger of another Targowica, or the Galician massacre.    (VII, 179)

Norwid goes on to provide detailed directions on preparing a manifesto, which should aim at creating a national quasi-representative body:

The manifesto ought to be published under the signature of one Polish member of the German parliament, another from the parliament of Austria, one member of the Warsaw Agricultural Society, a village school teacher and a peasant. (VII, 180)

This was not Norwid’s first attempt to encourage the creation of institutional forms for national opinion. In Norwid’s view the concept of national representation derived directly from Christian understanding of human personality.

Man as an individual is subordinate to society but he is also as a person subordinated directly to God. He has duties which he is under obligation to carry out but, equally, he has the right to expect reciprocal treatment from society, which should provide him with conditions for morał and spiritual growth. Norwid describes the State as un devoir collectif and in this matter as in others he remains a Christian personalist:

In the naturę of things, duty has two facets: the countrys duty towards the individual and the duty of the individual towards his country.    (VII, 113)

It would be wrong to see man as having only duties and to ignore his expectations. Man is not defined fully by his place in society and by what he does; he also stands for mankind and has a claim on society to be respected as a person in his ow right. It should be remembered that Norwid wrote a memorandum suggesting the formation of the “Society for the Defence of Human Rights” in 1875.

If man were stripped of everything he stands for and left only with his outward achievement, that man would no longer be whole nor would society (...)• Man not prepared to “represent”

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