M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu gave his first lecture in Sanders Theatre yesterday afternoon, on "Les Philosophes du XVIIIeme Siecle at la Revolution." He explained the reasons for the struggle in France, and in nearly all continental Europe, between democracy and Christianity. In France, democracy came from the French Revolution, which had its origin in the philosophy of the eighteenth century. The disciples of the philosophers and the leaders of the French Revolution, or their successors, had a distrust for Christianity and considered the Christian churches, and the Catholic church in particular, as obstacles to the new ideas and a political invention to keep the people in servitude.
One of the great advantages which America has over Europe is that the former not having met with the same struggles, is free from those prejudices which are still detaining the European democracy. With De Tocqueville, M. Leroy-Beaulieu believes that this is one of the principal causes of the success of democracy in America, and one of the best guarantees of its advance in the future.
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