generation, generacioun, #gene raCy on

[Fr. génération, from Lat. gene ratio, from gene ratus, pa. par. of genero =to generate; Sp. genera cion; Ital. generazione; Port. generação.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. The act of begetting, procreating or producing. "So fertile be the flouds in generation ." Spenser: F. Q., IV. xii. 1. *2. The act of producing, causing or giving rise or existence to. "Seals make excellent impre ions: and so it may be thought of sounds in their first generation ." -Bacon. *3. Progeny; offspring; i ue. "The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation me es To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbored." Shakesp.: Lear, i. 1. 4. A single succe ion or step in natural descent, as the children of the same parents; an age or period between one succe ion and another. "Four generations of Stuarts had waged a war to the death with four generations of Puritans." -Macaulay: Hist . Eng ., ch. vii. 5. The people of the same period or age; those living at the same time. "O faithle and perverse generation , who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"- Luke ix. 41. 6. A family; a race. "Thy mother's of my generation." Shakesp.: Timon of Athens, i. 1. *7. A pedigree, lineage, or descent. "Thus from the fact of Lot, we derive the generation of Ruth, and ble ed Nativity of our Savior." - Browne : Vul gar Errors , bk. v., ch. xxi. *8. An age. "Every where throughout all generations and ages of the Christian world, no church ever perceived the word of God to be against it." -Hooker: Eccles. Polity. II. Technically : 1. Math .: The formation of any magnitude by the motion of a point, or a magnitude of an inferior order. Thus, if a point move in accordance with any mathematical law, the path which it traces out is said to be generated by the point, and is a mathematical line. If a mathematical line be moved in accordance with a mathematical law, the surface in which it is always found is said to be generated by the line, and is always a mathematical surface. The moving point or magnitude is called the gener atrix, and the law according to which the motion & Peck .) takes place is called the law of generation. ( Davies 2. Phys. Anat .: The function which has for its object the propagation of the species, generation, presents many points of resemblance in plants and animals. In the former it is cryptogamic, or phanerogamic; in the latter non-sexual or sexual. In the cryptogamic and non-sexual generation, the new individual is developed by a separation of particles from the body of the parent, by which the new formation is nourished until it has so far matured as to be capable of an independent existence. (Todd & Bowman: Phys. Anat., vol. i., introd. p. 25.) (1) Alternation of generation , alternate gener ation. Biol .: [ALTERNATION.] (2) Equivocal , or Spontaneous generation : Biol . The view that some of the lower animals or plants, or the primordial form of one or other, or both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms may have sprung from lifele matter without the intervention of any previously existing parent. Alleged generative instances of such equivocal generation were shown to be unfounded, but e entially the same view has been revived as an hypothesis by Heckel and some evolutionists. It is called by Huxley abiogenesis (q. v.). For other kinds of generation, see Fi iparous, Gemmiparous, Larviparous, Oviparous, Pupiparous, and Viviparous. Crabb thus discriminates between generation and age : "Those who are born at the same time comprehends the age of man is the age : there may therefore be many generations spring up in the course of an age ; a fresh generation is springing up every day, which in the course of an age pa away, and are succeeded by fresh generations ." ( Eng . Synon.)