GENERATION, in theology. The Father is said by some divines to have produced his Word or Son from all eternity, by way of generation; on which occasion the word generation raises a peculiar idea: that procession, which is really effected in the way of understanding, is called generation, because in virtue thereof, the Word becomes like to him from whom he takes this original; or, as St Paul expresses it, is the figure or image of his substance, i. e. of his being and nature. And hence it is, they say, that the second Person in the Trinity is called the Son.
GENERATION is also used, though somewhat improperly, for genealogy, or the series of children issued from the same stock. Thus the gospel of St Matthew commences with the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, &c. The latter and more accurate translators, instead of generation use the word genealogy.
GENERATION is also used to signify a people, race, or nation, especially in the literal translations of the scripture, where the word generally occurs wherever the Latin has generatio, and the Greek γένεσις. Thus, "A wicked and perverse generation seeketh a sign," &c. "One generation passeth away, and another cometh," &c.
GENERATION is also used in the sense of an age, or the ordinary period of man's life. Thus we say, "to the third and fourth generation." In this sense historians usually reckon a generation the space of 33 years or thereabouts. See AGE.
Generator Herodotus makes three generations in an hundred years; which computation appears from the later authors of political arithmetic to be pretty just.