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like a novel) and that he envisaged "essayism" as a way of life which
might overcome the crucial dilemma confronting the free-floating intel–
lectual. This way of life he even called a "higher humanism," which
would reveal the "art of raising oneself above the level of scientific
knowledge," or in which the "pedantic," scientific precision would be
complemented by an "imaginative precision" thus perhaps bringing back
the possibility of being "a whole person," which Ulrich says at the be–
ginning of the work "does not exist any more." For Musil, as for Joyce
and Mann, irony was a basic attitude for such a new humanistic outlook.
In this sense, Ulrich pleads ironically, as his contribution to the preten–
tious cultural publicity campaign of the others, for the establishment of
a "world secretariat of precision and the soul."
Now it isn't exactly news that there is a principle of polarity at
work within man, or that we are in search of a "principle of complemen–
tarity" (in Bohr's terms) for the inner world of man as much as for the
interior of the atom. Moreover, it is also common knowledge that the
"unhappy, divided consciousness" of man manifests itself in various
ways. Nonetheless, Musil's recognition of the problem emphasized a
special aspect which still deserves to be taken seriously regardless of the
worth of his own solutions.
It
might, of course, be said that what he did
was simply to focus upon the fatal split between intellect and emotions
so characteristic of the psychological dynamics of the intellectual in
general. But, I think, the issue transcends psychology and is relevant to
a general theory of culture. There is no doubt that Musil saw what has
become a particularly acute division among intellectuals in our culture.
If
some variety of
secular
humanism should survive, or possibly be re–
vived (which is doubtful), it must, among other things, come to terms
with the two aspects of the humanistic tradition depicted by Musil as
incompatible with each other, the logic of the sciences and the logic of
the soul, or arts; and it must not do so, as it is often done today, by
sacrificing one for the other. It makes little sense to dismiss the arts, as
a so-called scientific philosophy often tends to do, as nothing but an ex–
pression of subjective feelings, devoid of intellectual content and properly
belonging in the field of experimental psychology. It makes just as little
sense to look upon the arts, as non-scientific, literary, and existentialist
thinkers are often inclined to do, as a gateway to truths r.uperior to
science, but incapable of clear and precise formulation. What does make
sense in the intricate and complex relationship between these two fields
is a difficult question; but Musil's portrait at least throws into sharp
relief the crucial issue that there must be some community of interest,
some form of communion or affinity, between these two disciplines of
