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One has to distinguish between Darwin's theory--which was that of a trained naturalist based on his detailed observations and "natural selection"that was immediately applied to every aspect of human life. One does not realize how faddish evolution became immediately until one looks at the literature of the day.If one could google in the time, the number of hits under "evolution" would have increased enormously between 1860 and 1870. Social Darwinism, of course, owed almost nothing to Darwin, but people thought it did so it had great influence for twenty years or so. People seem to think that being told that they were nothing more than "enlightened' brutes was liberating. Huxley himself was nonplused by the evident corruption of morals owing to the diminution of the Victorian morality, which was owed so much to evangelical and the Liberal Christian (called Gnostics BTW) beliefs among the middle classes. Freud invented the term "superego" to refer to this God substitute. One cannot blame Darwin or even the Darwinist for the likes of Hitler and Lenin, but they were the products of the Zeitgeist in which a half-understood Darwinism was common currency. Ironically, the best guides are Nietzsche and Kierkegaard each with his own startlingly clear insights.