Science Fiction

In Robert Musil's Man Without Qualities (a title, it seems that would be better translated as The Self Unmade Man) we find this spot-on definition of science fiction put into the mouth of Ulrich: 'I believe that some day before very long human beings will be -- on the one hand very intelligent, on the other mystics. Perhaps out mortality is even today splitting us into these two components. I might also call it: mathematics and mysticism -- practical amelioration and adventuring into the unknown.' Like Proust, and Conrad, it seems that Musil was an SF author without being aware of the fact.