in Physiology, the act of procreating and producing a being similar to the parent. See ANATOMY, No 157.

GENERATION of Fishes. See COMPARATIVE Anatomy, No 304, and Ichthyology.

GENERATION of Plants. See BOTANY.

GENERATION of Insects. See COMPARATIVE Anatomy, p. 312, and ENTOMOLOGY, p. 234.

Parts of GENERATION. See ANATOMY, No 157.

in Mathematics, is used for formation or production. Thus we meet with the generation of equations, curves, solids, &c.

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, Generation 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 γενεσις. Thus, "A wicked and perverse generation fecketh 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.

Herodotus makes three generations in a hundred years; which computation appears from the latter authors of political arithmetic to be pretty just.