Romanticism was also characterized by a nostalgia for the past and an admiration for the primitive. It was believed that primitive cultures were morally superior because they were more in tune with the natural world. In a sense Darwinism was a refutation of romanticism which held that by observing the beauty and harmony of nature one could be taught lessons of harmony and peace. Darwinism, however, saw the other side of nature, i.e., struggle, violence and cruelty. The law of nature is the survival of the fittest.
Progress comes from ruthless competition, the strong destroying the weak.
Darwinism gave new notions of heredity, race and environment. Friedrich Nietzsche, perhaps the most influential person in the 20th Century because of his ideas, combined the passion and irrationalism of romanticism with Darwinian science. The former gloried in individual identity, the latter in group identity. Both however, were advocates for the eradication of morality based on transcendence, and both opposed philosophical rationalism. The Nazi attempt to eliminate the weak and unfit can be traced directly to the writings of Nietzsche.