GENERAL SHIP-GENERALISATION. regimental or other pay. Captain-general is a rank very rarely conferred by the sovereign, who holds it ex officio. There has been no captain-general, other than the sovereign, during the present century. GENERAL SHIP, is a ship which has been advertised by the owners to take goods from a particular port, at a particular time, and which is not under any special contract to particular merchants. The owners, in this case, engage separately with each merchant who applies to them to convey his goods to the ship's destination. The contract between the owners, or the master acting in their behalf, and the proprietors of the goods, may in the case of general ship be established by parole evidence, and, indeed, there is rarely any other writing on the subject beyond the advertisement and the bill of lading. In general ship the master being intrusted by the owners with full power to contract for and take in goods, no agreement for freight which any one may have made with the owners, independently of him, will be effectual to secure room in the vessel. All such agreements must be intimated to the master, or those acting for him on board, before he has engaged freight for the whole vessel. By such intimation, a preference will be secured over the merchant who brings his goods to the ship's side on chance. If the owners of a general ship have advertised her as bound, for a particular port, they must give specific notice to every person who may ship goods on board, of any alteration in her destination, and they will be liable for the consequences of neglecting to do so. Bell's Com. i. 433, Shaw's edition; Abbot on Shipping, p. 233. GENERAL VERDICT. See VERDICT, JURY. GENERALISA'TION. Our experience of the world leads us to recognise not only great variety, but also numerous instances of agreement in the midst of the variety. We do not call the continuance of the same fact an agreement; it is only when, amid difference of accompaniment, we recognise a common feature, that our attention is awakened, and our mind interested. Sometimes the common feature in a number of varying objects is obvious and universally noticed; as when we identify the round form amidst all disparities of size, colour, and substance. At other times, the resemblance is so obscured by the amount of difference, that it has lain for ages unperceived; the fall of a stone was never suspected, before the time of Newton, to have anything in common with the motions of the moon and planets. When we see the same property or effect repeated under great variety of circumstances and adjuncts, and when we indicate by a name or otherwise that this agreement exists, we are said to mark out a general or generalised property, or fact; while the individual instances are termed the particulars, on which the other is grounded. To understand the full meaning of generalisation, and the questions therewith connected, we must advert to the distinction between two modes of the operation. In the one, we generalise an individual or isolated property--as roundness, whiteness, weight, attraction, justice and assign what we think the exact nature of the common feature thus singled out. A number of designations have been given to this process, according to the particular stage in the operation most specially taken into view; these are Classification, General Notion, General Term, Definition, Abstraction, Concept or Conception, Idea. They all suppose that we have a plurality of objects with agreeing properties, and that agreement has been taken notice of, and embodied in such a form, that the mind can deal with it to the neglect of the points wherein the particular things differ among 1 themselves. They suppose, further, that we make no affirmation beyond what is implied in the identifying of so many differing objects-namely, that they do agree in the point in question. No other matter for belief or disbelief is presented in the notion of roundness but that certain things have been compared, and have been found to agree in possessing that attribute. To attempt to form a general notion, or to mark a property not attaching to anything in nature, is a pure irrelevance and absurdity; and although by a bold stretch of imagination we might people the earth with chimerical objects, and find agreements among them, yet such generalities could not be introduced into any process of reasoning; it is presumed, that wherever a general property is specified, there are things in nature having this property in company with the others that make up the total characteristics of each. But the other kind of generalisation introduces belief in a totally different shape. When instead of identifying a property, we identify a union or conjunction of distinct properties, it has to be seen not merely whether the common features are correctly rendered in the general notion, but whether the alleged coupling always takes place. Thus, when find, with some exceptions, that twice a day the we compare the sea coasts all over the globe, we sea advances and recedes on the shore: this fact we express by the general name the tides. When, however, we go further, and note everywhere the coincidence between the tides and the positions of the moon, and generalise that coincidence, we attain to to believe not merely in the accurate correspondence a more complicated result. We are now called upon of a general notion with the particular objects, but in the constancy of the conjunction between two distinct properties, so that the occurrence of one shall always count as evidence of the other. The different aspects of this higher operation have given rise to another series of designations, contrasting with those given above for the simpler operation; these are Induction, Inductive Generalisation, Conjoined Properties, Affirmation, Proposition, Judgment, Law, Order of Nature. These all involve truth or falsehood, inasmuch as they all pretend to give us a positive assurance that wherever we find one thing we shall find some other thing present or absent, and be enabled thereby to anticipate our individual experience of the course of nature. A general notion can often be expressed in a single word; the noun is the part of speech that names both particular objects and general notions. A general proposition is a complete thought, and requires a sentence for its enunciation; it involves the verb along with the noun. Heat is a notion, and so is Light; but when we unite the two in the affirmation that heat is the cause of light, we indicate something that is true or false, that may be proved or disproved, believed or denied. This higher form of generalisation is treated of under INDUCTION. On the other and simpler form, a few further explanations are added here. In the operation of forming a general notion, the first step is something of the nature of Classification. We must assemble in our view a number of particular objects, being moved to bring them together by the attractive bond or association of similarity. The objects thus assembled are a class. In Natural History, for example, we bring together in the mind all the quadrupeds that we have ever had any knowledge of, and the array constitutes a class, grounded on the peculiarity of walking on all-fours. Another class is made up of the animals that fly in the air; a third, of those that live in the sea. By such successive groupings of creatures that have a kindred nature in one or more respects, we gradually GENERALISATION. include the whole of the animal kingdom known to us in a series of classifications, whereby method and order are introduced into the otherwise heterogeneous mass. So in plants and minerals, and all through nature. According as likenesses have been discerned in the constituent parts of the universe of things, the individuals are placed with those related to them, and a great simplification of view and extension of knowledge are the results. For it happens very frequently, that likeness in one point is accompanied with likeness in other points, so that we can couple several peculiarities together, and rise to general truths as well as general notions. When a classification has been arrived at that leads to this consequence, we put a more than ordinary value upon it; we consider that we have seized upon some fundamental and pregnant point of resemblance, something that conveys the most essential nature of the objects classified, and we are accustomed to style the group that so arises a natural or a philosophical classification. The arranging of animals according to the element they live in, as land, water, air, so very obvious to the first observers, has given place to one founded on other kinds of likeness-namely, the structure of the skeleton and the mode of bringing forth and rearing the young; it being proved that a greater number of important attributes are bound up with those characteristics than with the element that the animals inhabit. See Mill's Logic, book iv. chap. 7. The forming of a class leads to the adoption of a Class Name, in other words, of a general name, which is a name applicable to every individual member of the class, in consequence of being understood to express no more than they all have in common. Thus we have the name 'round' to express all round objects, omitting any reference to other peculiarities that may attach to them. So the names 'bird,' 'heath,' 'salt,' are applicable alike to a vast number of individual things. When the general name has been devised, we can by means of it speak of all the particulars in one breath, on condition that we intend only to refer to the points of community. (which would be to contradict the very essence of generalisation, namely, likeness among unlikenesses), we must still grant to the mind the power of attending in thought to what is common, neglecting for the time the disagreements. We can think of all the consequences of the circular figure, without specially attending to the other peculiarities of any individual circle. This abstractive process is performed in different ways, according to the nature of the subject. In geometry, for example, we can draw diagrams that are little other than naked forms, although we must make them of a definite size; and in contemplating these, we are enabled to think of form without substance. We cannot use this method in Natural History; we cannot form a conception of a bird by a diagram that gives nothing but what is common to all birds. If we are reasoning upon the properties of the class, we may first call into view some one as an example, say a pigeon; from considering which, we can go so far as to note the common peculiarities of feathers, wings, bill, &c.; and when we have completed the description, we run over in our mind a number of other birds, to see that we have not mentioned points special to the pigeon. In fact, we must have within call the whole of the members of the class, if we would reason generally respecting it. After we have thus checked and corrected our generalised description, we can embody the abstract idea in a form of very wide occurrence in our general reasonings, namely, a verbal statement of the common attributes. By means of this, we may often dispense with the reference to the particulars, except to know the precise meaning of the language, which meaning is still some sort of general conception of the objects. We must have a general notion of feathers, and of the structure of the bill in birds, upon the plan above mentioned of holding in the mind some typical instance subject to correction by a com parison of all the instances coming under the genus. So that, in point of fact, no general reasoning has ever been invented to supersede totally this refer ence to the particulars; the formal reasonings of mathematics require us still to have in the mind concrete quantity, or one thing as equal to, greater than, or less than, another. The process called Abstraction is further implied. When we bring together, or constitute a class, in virtue of a prevailing resemblance, we are said to These remarks lead us to the nature of Definition, 'abstract' from the individuals everything else which is one of the important designations growing except the points of agreement. In the language of out of the operation of generalising. To define, is Sir W. Hamilton, we attend to the likeness and to limit, settle, and specify the exact compass of the abstract the differences. The notion that we have properties common to a class. Usually this is done of the common quality is termed by the same by means of language; but in reality it is, and must philosopher the Concept; but it has been usual to be done, by a reference, direct or remote, to the employ the phrase 'abstraction' or 'abstract idea' particulars themselves. This reference frequently for the same purpose, although a perversion of the has the appearance of being dispensed with. The original application of that word. The common reason is that many general notions are compounded attribute of round bodies, the round figure, or of others, and we can understand the composite form, is the concept, or the abstract idea of round- notion from its components, without going further; ness. The precise character of this mental element that is, without producing particulars. Thus, a or process has been much disputed in philosophy, circle in the abstract might be made intelligible by there being three different sects that have grown pointing to a number of concrete circles, such as are up in connection with it; the Realists, Nominalists, drawn in Euclid; we should then have to impress and Conceptualists. The Realists gave an actual on our minds a sufficient number of these to prevent independent existence to the prototypes of our us from ever associating with the general idea any general notions, maintaining that apart from all one size, or any one colour of the outline (which circular bodies there existed in nature a circular must be drawn in black, red, blue, or some other form, having no other attribute soever, like a circle colour). No one circle is really the general notion; of Euclid bereft of the actual line required to mark this must be nothing less than a multitude of actual the figure to the eye. The Nominalists considered circles, which the mind apprehends by turns, so as that the only general thing was the common name; to be sure of never affirming any attribute as comthe Conceptualists allowed a mental existence to mon that is in fact peculiar to one or a few. But the generalised attributes, but no more. (Sir W. the concept, circle, can be got at in another way. If Hamilton's Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 296.) The last we determine first what is called a 'point' in space, are, no doubt, near the truth; for although we can- and a 'line' proceeding from that point, and made not, with Plato, affirm the existence in nature of to revolve around it, the other extremity of the 'generals' that have no embodiment in particulars | revolving line will mark a course which is a circle. GENERATION. Here, if we possess ourselves of the simple notions or concepts, Point, Line, Revolution, we may attain to the notion, Circle, without examining actual circles in the concrete. So we may detine an oval, or ellipse, and many other figures. This practice of referring to a simpler order of concepts for the constituents of a given one, is the main function of the Definition, which applies, therefore, to complex notions, and not to such as are ultimate, or simple in the extreme degree. To define in the last resort, we must come to quoting the particulars. We cannot define a line by anything more elementary. To say, with Euclid, that it is length without breadth, is no assistance, as we must still go to our experience for examples of length; and length is not a more simple idea than line, being, in fact, but another word for the same thing. Nevertheless, it has been often supposed that there are general notions independent of all experience, or reference to particulars; the form commonly given to the foundations of the science of mathematics having favoured this view. The name genus' is also connected with the present subject. It is co-relative with another word, species,' which, however, is itself to some extent a generalisation; for every species is considered to have individuals under it. Thus, in Zoology, felis is a genus of animals, and the lion, tiger, cat, &c., are among its species; but each of those species is the generalisation of an innumerable number of individual lions, tigers, &c., differing considerably from one another, so that to express the species we are still obliged to have recourse to the operations of comparison, abstraction, and definition. Genus and species, therefore, introduce to us the existence of successive generalisations, more and more extensive in their range of application, and possessing, in consequence, a smaller amount of similarity or community of feature (see EXTENSION). GENERATION. See REPRODUCTION. In GENERATION. A term in use in Mathematics. One geometrical figure is said to be generated by another, when produced or formed by an operation performed upon the other. Thus a cone is generated by making a right-angled triangle revolve about one of its sides adjoining the right angle as an axis. arithmetic, in the same way, a number is said to be generated when produced by an operation performed on one or more other numbers. Thus, 36 is generated by the involution of 6 to the 2d power, or by the multiplication of 4 and 9. GENERATION, ETERNAL. See TRINITY, DOCTRINE OF THE. GENERATION, SPONTANEOUS. From the earliest period to the termination of the middle ages, no one called in question the doctrine that, under certain favourable conditions, of which putrefaction was one of the most important, animals might be produced without parents. Anaximander and Empedocles attributed to this form of generation all the living beings which first peopled the globe. Aristotle, without committing himself to so general a view, maintains that animals are sometimes formed in putrefying soil, sometimes in plants, and sometimes in the fluids of other animals, and lays down the following general principle, that every dry substance which becomes moist, and every moist body which is dried, produces living creatures, provided it is fit for nourishing them.' The views of Lucretius on this subject are shewn in the following lines: Nonne vides quæcunque morâ, fluidoque liquore Corpora tabuerint, in parva animalia verti? And Pliny maintains that 'quædam gignuntur ex non genitis, et sine ullâ simili origine.' Virgil's directions for the production of bees are known to 199 every reader of the Georgics, and an expression in the Book of Judges (xiv. 14) probably points to a similar opinion. Passing from classical times to the later period of the middle ages, and the two succeeding centuries, we may quote amongst the advocates of this theory Cardan-who, in his treatise De Subtilitate (1542), asserts that water engenders fishes, and that many animals spring from fermentation-Aldrovandus, Licetus, Gassendi, Scaliger, Van Helmont, who gives special instructions for the artificial production of mice, and Kircher, who in his Mundus Subterraneus (in the chapter De Panspermia Rerum') describes, and actually figures, certain animals which were produced under his own eyes by the transforming influence of water on fragments of the stems of different plants! Redi, the celebrated Italian naturalist, whose Experiments on the Generation of Insects were pub lished in 1668, seems to have been the first opponent that the doctrine of spontaneous generation encountered. In this work, he proves that the worms and insects which appear in decaying substances are in reality developed from eggs, deposited in those substances by the parents. Leuwenhoek, Vallisneri, Swammerdam, and other eminent naturalists, soon contributed additional facts and arguments in favour of Redi's view; and as from the time of Redi to the present day, the tide of opinion has generally turned strongly against the doctrine in question, it is unnecessary to carry the historical sketch further. The entozoa, however, continued to be a great stumbling-block. 'When,' says Professor Owen, the entozoologist contemplated the tania fixed to the intestine, with its uncinated and suctorious head buried in the mucous membrane, rooted to the spot, and imbibing nourishment like a plant-when he saw the sluggish distoma (or fluke) adhering by its sucker to the serous membrane of a closed internal cavity, he naturally asked himself how they got there; and finding no obvious solution to the diffi culty of the transit on the part of such animals, he was driven to the hypothesis of spontaneous gener ation to solve the difficulty. It is no wonder that the entozoa rather as naturalists than physiologists, Rudolphi (1808) and Bremser (1824), who studied should have been led to apply to them the easy explanation which Aristotle had given for the coming into being of all kinds of Vermes-viz., that they were spontaneously generated. No other explanation, in the then state of the knowledge of the development of the entozoa, appeared to be adequate to account for the fact of their getting into the interior cavities and tissues of higher animals.' The recent investigations of Von Siebold, Küchenmeister, Van Beneden, Philippi, &c., regarding the development and metamorphoses of the entozoa, have, however, tended to remove nearly all the difficulties which this subject presented; and the advocates of spontaneous generation are fairly driven from this, one of the last of their battle-fields. The only point at present in dispute is, whether microscopic organisms (animals or plants) may be spontaneously generated. It is well known that if we examine under the microscope a drop of water in which almost any animal or vegetable substances have been infused, and which contains the particles of such substances in a state of decay or decomposition, it is found to swarm with minute living organisms. The question at issue is this: Are these organisms developed in the water, if the necessary precautions have been taken to exclude every animalcule or germ capable of development both from the water and from the air that has 673 GENERATION-GENERATIONS. The phenomenon has been observed in many of the hydrozoa, in various entozoa, in annelids, in molluscoids (salpa), and in insects (aphides); and its nature will be best understood by our giving one or two illustrations. access to it? A well-known experiment, devised by or with the intervention of a determinate number of Professor Schulze of Berlin (a description of which generations.' may be found in Owen's Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2d ed. p. 44), shews that with due precautions in reference to these points, no animal or vegetable organisms are produced. This experiment was continued uninterruptedly from the 28th of May until the beginning of August, and when, at last, the professor separated the different parts of the apparatus, he could not find in the whole liquid the slightest trace of infusoria or confervæ, or of mould; but all three presented themselves in great abundance a few days after he had left the flask standing open.' A vessel with a similar infusion, which he placed near the apparatus, contained vibriones and monads on the second day of the experiment, to which were soon added larger polygastric infusoria. A few years ago, M. Pouchet announced that he had repeated Schulze's experiment with every precaution, but that animalcules and plants were invariably developed in the infusion on which he operated. To prove that the atmospheric air contained no germs, he substituted artificial air-that is to say, a mixture of 21 parts of oxygen gas with 79 of nitrogen. The air was introduced into a flask containing an infusion of hay, prepared with distilled water and hay that had been exposed for twenty minutes to a temperature of 212°. He thus apparently guarded against the presence of any germs or animalcules in the infusion or in the air. The whole was then hermetically sealed, so that no other air could gain access; yet after all these precautions, minute animal and vegetable organisms appeared in the infusion. He repeated the experiment with pure oxygen gas instead of air, and obtained similar results. These experiments are described by Pouchet in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles (1858, 4th series, vol. ix. p. 372), and the same volume contains important articles by Milne Edwards, and by De Quatrefages, in opposition to Pouchet's views. A very large majority of our physiologists of the present day reject the doctrine; most of the apparently exceptional cases, as, for example, the mysterious presence of the entozoa, have been found to admit of ready explanation; and if we do not positively deny the possibility that animalcules may be generated spontaneously, we may at all events assert that such a mode of generation is not probable, and has certainly not been proved to exist. Those who wish to know more fully the arguments that may be adduced in favour of, and in opposition to, the doctrine, are referred, on the one hand, to Pouchet's Hétérogénie, ou Traité de la Génération Spontanée, basé sur de Nouvelles Expériences (1859); and, on the other, to Pasteur's Mémoire sur les Corpuscules Organisés qui existent dans l'Atmosphere; Examen de la Doctrine des Générations Spontanées, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique (3d ser. 1862, vol. lxiv. pp. 1-110), which seems to place the question beyond the reach of any further discussion. GENERATIONS, ALTERNATION OF, a phrase devised by Steenstrup, a Danish naturalist, about twenty years ago, to signify the remarkable and till now inexplicable natural phenomenon of an animal producing an offspring, which at no time resembles its parent, but which, on the other hand, itself brings forth a progeny which returns in its form and nature to the parent animal, so that the maternal animal does not meet with its resemblance in its own brood, but in its descendants in the second, third, or fourth degree or generation; this always taking place in the different animals which exhibit the phenomenon in a determinate generation, We commence with the development of the medusa or jelly fishes, which belong to the class hydrozoa. The medusa discharges living young, which, after having burst the covering of the egg, swim about freely for some time in the body of the mother. When first discharged or born, they have no resemblance whatever to the perfect medusa, but are little cylindrical bodies (fig. 1, a), covered a Fig. 1. with cilia, moving with considerable rapidity, and resembling infusoria. After moving freely in the water for some days, each little animal fixes itself to some object by one extremity (e), while at the opposite extremity a depression is gradually formed, the four corners (b, f) becoming elongated, and gradually transformed into tentacles (c). These tentacles increase in number till the whole of the upper margin is covered with them (g). Transverse wrinkles are then seen on the body at regular intervals, appearing first above, and then extending downwards. As these wrinkles grow deeper, the edge of each segment presents a toothed appearance, so that the organism resembles an artichoke or pinecone, surmounted by a tuft of tentacles (h). The segments gradually become more separated, until they are united by only a very slender axis, when they resemble a pile of shallow cups placed within each other (2). At length the upper segment disengages itself, and then the others in succession. Each segment (d) continues to develop itself until it becomes a complete medusa (k); while the basis or stalk remains, and produces a new colony. Here, then, we have the egg of the medusa gradually developed into the polypoid organism (h), to which the term strobila (from strobilos, a pine-cone) has been given. This polype, by gemmation and fission, yields medusæ with reproductive organs. The phenomenon of alternation of generations in the Cestoid Worms (q. v.), and in certain Trematoid Worms (see FLUKE), has already been noticed, and will be further discussed in the article TAPEWORMS. The fission of certain annelids (Syllis and Myrianida), (see REPRODUCTION), presents an example, although at first sight a less obvious one, of alternation of generations, the non-sexual parent worm yielding by fissure progeny containing spermatozoa and ova, from which again a non-sexual generation is produced. The Salpa (mollusca or molluscoids belonging to the family Tunicata) are usually regarded as affording a good illustration of the phenomenon under consideration. It was in these animals that it was originally noticed by Chamisso, who accompanied Kotzebue in his voyage round the world (1815-1818). The Salpa (from twenty to forty in GENESEE GENESIS. each. The individuals thus joined in chains (fig. 2, A) produce eggs; one egg being generally developed in the body of each animal. This egg, when hatched, produces a little mollusc (fig. 2, B), which remains solitary, differs in many respects from the parent, a does not produce an egg, but propagates by a kind of internal gemmation, which gives rise to chains Fig. 2, B. already seen within the body of the parent, which finally bursts and liberates them. These chains, again, bring forth solitary individuals. The only instance in which this phenomenon occurs in animals so highly organised as insects is in the Aphides, or Plant-lice. In many species of the genus aphis, which in the perfect state possess wings, a large proportion of the individuals never acquire these organs, but remain in the condition of larvæ. These without any sexual union (none of them, indeed, being males) bring forth during the summer living young ones resembling themselves; and these young ones repeat the process, till ten or eleven successive broods are thus produced; the last progeny, towards the end of the summer, being winged males and females, which produce fruitful eggs that retain their vitality during the winter, and give birth to a new generation in the spring, long after their parents have perished. Other peculiarities of insect-generation will be noticed in the article PARTHENOGENESIS. Several high physiological authorities, amongst whom we may especially mention Huxley ('On the Anatomy of Salpæ,' in Phil. Trans. for 1851, and 'On Animal Individuality,' in Ann. of Nat. Hist., 2d ser., vol. ix. p. 505), and Carpenter (Principles of Comparative Physiology, 1854), object to the term 'alternation of generations.' The detached portions of the stock originating in a single generative act are termed Zooids by these writers, whilst by the term animal or entire animal (the equivalent of Zoon) they understand in the lower tribes, as in the higher, the collective product of a single generative act. Here they include under the title of one generation all that intervenes between one generative act and the next. If,' says Dr Carpenter, the phenomena be viewed under this aspect, it will be obvious that the so-called "alternation of generations" has no real existence; since in every case the whole series of forms which is evolved by continuous development from one generative act repeats itself precisely in the products of the next generative act. The alternation, which is very frequently presented in the forms of the lower animals, is between the products of the generative act and the products of gemmation, and the most important difference between them usually consists in this that the former do not contain the generative apparatus which is evolved in the latter alone. The generating zooid may be merely a segment cast off from the body at large, as in the case of the Tape-worms (q. v.), or it may contain a combination of generative and locomotive organs, as in the self-dividing Annelide. It may possess, however, not merely locomotive organs, but a complete nutritive apparatus of its own, which is the case in all those instances in which the zooid is cast off in an early stage of its development, and has to attain an increased size, and frequently also to evolve the generative organs, subsequently to its detachment; of this we have examples in the Medusa budded off from Hydroid Polypes, and in the aggregate Salpæ.' -Principles of Comparative Physiology, p. 529. GENESEE', a remarkable river of North America, the states of Pennsylvania and New York, flows rises about 10 miles south of the boundary between north through the western portion of the latter state, and after a course of 145 miles falls into Lake Ontario, 7 miles north of the city of Rochester. The G. is not only notable for the varied and romantic character of its scenery, but is also famous for its extraordinary falls. Of these falls, which are five in number, three, occurring within a distance of two miles, in the vicinity of the town of Portage, about 90 miles from the mouth of the The other two, the one occurring immediately above river, are respectively 60, 90, and 110 feet high. Rochester, and the other about 3 miles below that city, are both of about 100 feet. GE'NESIS, or more fully GENESIS KOSMOU (Origin, Generation of the World), is the name first given by the Septuagint to the opening book of the Pentateuch. In the Hebrew canon it is called Bereshith (In the Beginning), from the initial word; in the Talmud, it is sometimes referred to as 'The Book of Creation,' or 'The Book of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Its Masoretic division into fifty chapters, followed in the English Bible, or into 12 large and 43 small encyclical sections (Sedarim, Parshioth), has been grounded rather on convenience than on any corresponding division of the subject-matter. The book seems of itself to fall most naturally into two totally distinct parts: the first of which would extend from the beginning to the call of Abraham (c. i.—xii.), and embrace the account of the creation, paradise, fall, the generations between Adam and Noah, together with their religion, arts, settlements, and genealogy, the deluge, the repeopling of the earth, the tower of Babel, the dispersion of the human race, and the generations between Noah and Abraham: thus forming an introduction to the second part (c. xii.—1.), or the history of the patriarchs (Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, and Joseph); the whole concluding with the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt. Another division seems indicated by the inscription Toledoth (Origin, Generation), which occurs ten times in the course of the book, introducing at each repetition a new cycle of the narrative, and which would thus split the whole (from c. ii. 4) into ten distinct sections of disproportionate length. The period of time over which the Book of Genesis extends has been variously computed; the number of years commonly assigned to it is about 2300; the variations in calculation seldom exceeding units or tens of years; Bishop Hales alone, following the Septuagint, reckons 3619 years. Being a portion, and the introductory portion of the Pentateuch-at the same time that it forms a complete whole in itself-it cannot but be considered as laying down the basis for that theocracy of which the development is recorded in the succeeding books. While the design and plan of the Pentateuch is thus also that of Genesis, the latter, however discordant its constituent parts may seem, does not lack the necessary unity. Beginning with the cosmogony, or rather geogony, i. e., the |