Lau (Theodor Ludwig), German philosopher, b. at Königsberg, 15 June 1670, studied at Königsberg and Halle, and about 1695 travelled through Holland, England, and France. In 1717 he published in Latin, at Frankfort, Philosophical Meditations on God, the World, and Man, which excited an outcry for its materialistic tendency and was suppressed. He was a follower of Spinoza, and held several official positions from which he was deposed on account of his presumed atheism. Died at Altona, 8 Feb. 1740. Laurent (François), Belgian jurisconsult, b. Luxembourg, 8 July, 1810. Studied law and became an advocate. In '35 he was made Professor of Civil Law in the University of Ghent, a post he held, despite clerical protests, till his retirement in '80. A voluminous author on civil and international law, his principal work is entitled Studies in the History of Humanity. He was a strong advocate of the separation of Church and State, upon which he wrote, 1858-60. He also wrote Letters on the Jesuits, '65. Died in 1887. Law (Harriet), English lecturess, who for many years occupied the secular platform, and engaged in numerous debates. She edited the Secular Chronicle, 1876-1879. Lawrence (James), Knight of Malta, b. Fairfield, Jamaica, 1773, of good Lancashire family. Educated at Eton and Gottingen; became acquainted with Schiller and Goethe at Stuttgart and Weimar, was detained with English prisoners at Verdun. In 1807 he published his The Empire of the Nairs, or the Rights of Women, a free-love romance which he wrote in German, French, and English. He also wrote in French and English, a curious booklet The Children of God, London, 1853. He addressed a poem on Tolerance to Mr. Owen, on the occasion of his denouncing the religions of the world. It appears in The Etonian Out of Bounds. Died at London 26 Sept. 1841. Lawrence (Sir William), surgeon, b. Cirencester, 1783. Admitted M.R.C.S., 1805, in '13 he was chosen, F.R.S., and two years later was named Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. While he held that chair he delivered his Lectures on Man, which on their publication in 1819 roused a storm of bigotry. In his early manhood, Lawrence was an earnest advocate of radical reform; but notwithstanding his early unpopularity, he acquired a lucrative practice. Died London, 5 July, 1867. Layton (Henry), educated at Oxford, and studied at Gray's Inn, being called to the bar. He wrote anonymously observations on Dr. Bentley's Confutation of Atheism (1693), and a Search After Souls, and Spiritual Observations in Man (1700). Leblais (Alphonse), French professor of mathematics, b. Mans, 1820. Author of a study in Positivist philosophy entitled Materialism and Spiritualism (1865), to which Littré contributed a preface. Le Bovier de Fontenelle. See Fontenelle.