Great comment and question, thanks. I’m familiar with the theory about the impact of Darwin on humans’ views of themselves. I think it contributed to a a trend of reevaluation that was already underway that was shattering the ancient European notion that humans are privileged beings at the center or pinnacle of the universe.

My opinion is that ressentiment is also a very old phenomenon, but that social changes in the 1800s and contemporaneous with Darwin, intensified the phenomenon. One big social change was the industrial revolution which reshuffled the social class structure. That new structure and its horrific working conditions bred ressentiment, one manifestation of which was the workers/peasant revolutions of the mid to late 1800s. I suspect that those changes had a bigger effect that the idea of evolution, though that certainly exacerbated ongoing trends.