This article analyzes how the acceptance of Social Darwinist ideas from the West impacted emergent Korean nationalism during the Korean Empire Period. Social Darwinism was a set of ideas formulated by Herbert Spencer and others that were utilized in ideological justifications of colonial rule by survival of the fittest, racist evolutionary theories premised upon eugenics, and in Fascism. However, it was perceived in the Korean Empire as being a logic of the survival of the fittest. Hence, it was taken to mean that Korea must modernize to become a civilized state. At different times, each of the three states of East Asia – China, Japan and Korea – all were confronted by Western imperial power in the form of unequal treaties, economic invasion, political pressure etc. The process of seeking a response to Western encroachment led each of the three states to accept the logic of Social Darwinism. It become a part of the approach to modernization that all three states pursued, an approach that stressed the need for a rich state and a strong army. Social Darwinism became an important standard by which to understand and overcome present realities in Korean society of the time. Intellectuals, including politicians, saw the Korea’s descend into Japanese colonial domination in Social Darwinian terms, being characterized by the logic of the survival of the fittest. Social Darwinism was also interpreted as providing a standard which put the maintenance of the nation and state above individual rights. And in order to recover national sovereignty, Social Darwinism was actively accepted and utilized. This logic developed into a theory of self-strengthening. In education, this theory stressed the importance of boosting access to education and increasing the country’s productive capacity. Self-strengthening theorists clearly understood Social Darwinism as the theory that undergirded imperialism, they advocated for a rich state and strong army, and for nationalism. Consequently, enlightenment organizations formed, published periodicals that advocated for education and economic development, but also stressed the importance of patriotism and nationalism. They also founded or actively supported schools. Self-strengthening theory thus saw ‘abilities as power’ It became the basis for an emerging nationalism that stressed the state and nation as being the root of sovereignty, rather than the individual. Ultimately, while Social Darwinism acted as the theoretical foundation of imperialism in the West, in Korean society of the Korean Empire period it was seen as an alternative by which to struggle against the loss of sovereignty at the hands of the Western powers and imperial Japan. It also exerted a not inconsiderable influence on the formation of nationalist ideas.