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Darwin struggled with the very existence of suffering, yet he had a profound understanding of its value. At the very centre of his theory of evolution is the necessity of suffering, struggle and death; through these experiences, species can evolve and advance. This link between negative events and the production of beauty, wonder and advancement is evident in the following passage from The Origin of Species: Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
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“She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
— Carl Sagan
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