French physicist and philosopher Bernard d'Espagnat has announced that Mystery is a vital component of life. The New York Times reports:

D'Espagnat said . . . that since science cannot reveal anything certain about the nature of being, it cannot tell us with certainty what it is not.

"Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated," he said. "On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being."

He added that he is "convinced that those among our contemporaries who believe in a spiritual dimension of existence and live up to it are, when all is said, fully right."