LAODICEA (-se'a), in ancient geog raphy, the name of several towns of Asia, the most important of which was a city of ancient Phrygia, near the river Lycos, so called after Laodice, Queen of Antiochus Theos, its founder, built on the site of an older town named Dios polis. It was destroyed by an earth quake during the reign of Tiberius, but rebuilt by the inhabitants, who were very wealthy. A severe rebuke is addressed to its inhabitants in the Apocalypse. It fell into the hands of the Turks in 1255, was again destroyed in 1402, and is now a heap of ruins, known by the name of Eski-Hissar. Art and science flourished among the ancient Laodiceans, and it was the seat of a famous medical school. The number of Jews who were settled here at the rise of Christianity will ac count for its importance. An important ecclesiastical council, the First Council of Laodicea, was held here in 363, which strong position, it has been a fortress since the 5th century; its citadel is sur rounded with ruinous walls. From 515 to 1790 it was the seat of a bishop. The cathedral, a Gothic edifice of the 12th century, and the bishop's palace, now a law-court. still remain. The inhabitants adopted resolutions concerning the canon of the Old and New Testaments and re ferring to ecclesiastical discipline. A second council, 476, condemned the Eutychians.
LAON (1a-ong), the chief town of the French department of Aisne; 87 miles N. E. of Paris. Occupying a naturally are noted marxet-gardeners. In the 10th century the city was the place of resi dence of the Carlovingian kings, and capital of Francia. At Laon, March 9 and 10, 1814, Napoleon I. was repulsed by the allies under Bliicher and Billow; and it surrendered to a German force, Sept. 9, 1870. In the fall of 1914, Ger man forces captured the town and held it until the Allied offensive in the sum mer of 1918. Pop. about 15,000.
LAOS (la'os), a territory in the Indo China peninsula, surrounded by the Shan states Annam, Tonking, and the Chinese province of Yunnan; area, estimated, 91,000 square miles; pop. est. 1,500,000; the soil is fertile, producing rice, cotton, tobacco, and fruits, and bearing teak forests; gold, tin, lead, and precious stones are found. Has been under French protectorate since 1892. Laos was the subject of four political agree ments, the last in 1907 when the terri tory on the W. side of Nuking was partly restored to Siam.
(15.-o-tsal, a celebrated
philosopher of China; generally reputed to have been the founder of Taoism; which at the present day shares the al legiance of the Chinese with Confucian ism and Buddhism under the appellation of San Chiao, born probably in 604 B. c. He was curator of the royal library in the capital city of Loh, not far from the present city of Loh-yang in Ho-nan. The desig-nation Lao-tsze means the "old philosopher." Nothing certain can be said of the length of Lao's life. Sze ma-Ch'ien, the historian of ancient China, tells us that he cultivated "the Tao and its characteristics," his chief aim being to keep himself unknown; that he resided long at the capital, and then seeing the decay of the dynasty of Chau went away to the gate which led out of the royal domain toward the regions of the N. W.; that there he was recognized by Yin Hsi, the keeper of the gate, the place of which is shown in the present Shan Chau of Ho-nan, and was prevailed on to write out for him the treatise called the "Tao Teh King," which has come down to us as the only record of his teaching. It is not easy, however to say what he meant by his Tao. "it was the origina tor of heaven and earth: it is the mother of all thing's." At the same time it is not a personal being. "It might appear," he says, "to have been before God." "It gave," says Chwang-tsze, the ablest of all Lao's followers, 'their mysterious ex istence to spirits and to God (or to gods)." The character Tao properly means "path," "course," or "way"; and it is in this sense that Lao uses it. His "great way" is but a metaphorical ex pression for the way in which things came at first into being out of the primal nothingness. Of the same kind should be the influence of the Tao in the con duct of individuals and of government. The secret of good government is to let men alone. The appeal to arms is hate ful. All learning is injurious. The wis dom of men defeats its own ends. Tao works by contraries, and the secret of its strength is its weakness. In many of these teachings Lao-tsze may seem to be only a visionary dreamer, but he enun ciates many lessons of a very high mor ality. Its fundamental quality is humil ity. He even rises to the greatest of all moral principles, the returning of good for evil, and enunciates "recompensing injury with kindness." He nowhere speaks clearly of the state of man after death.