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 comparison 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 reference 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.

GENERATION-GENERATIONS.

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.

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 The Salpa (mollusca or molluscoids belonging to form and nature to the parent animal, so that the the family Tunicata) are usually regarded as maternal animal does not meet with its resemblance affording a good illustration of the phenomenon in its own brood, but in its descendants in the under consideration. It was in these animals that second, third, or fourth degree or generation; this it was originally noticed by Chamisso, who accomalways taking place in the different animals which panied Kotzebue in his voyage round the world exhibit the phenomenon in a determinate generation, |(1815-1818). The Salpa (from twenty to forty in

GENESEE-GENESIS.

number) are united together by special organs of attachment, so as to form long chains, which float in the sea, the mouth (m), however, being free in

m

Fig. 2, B.

These chains,

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
already seen within the
body of the parent, which
finally bursts and liberates them.
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 Zöoids 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 zöoid 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 river, are respectively 60, 90, and 110 feet high. The other two, the one occurring immediately above Rochester, and the other about 3 miles below that city, are both of about 100 feet.

GENESIS, 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 suc ceeding 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

GENESIS.

the whole Pentateuch being a Mosaic of fragments by various authors. Both these notions have now been pretty generally rejected, chiefly on account of their incompatibility with the apparent unity of the whole work and its single parts. The theory adopted by the majority of biblical critics of our day, among whom may be mentioned Wette, Lengerke, Knobel, Stähelin, Bleek, Tuch, Delitzsch, and Bunsen, is the 'Complementary,' according to which the author of the Pentateuch-the Jehovist--had worked upon an old Elohistic fundamental record which embraced the time from the creation to the death of Joshua, altering, enlarging, and completely rewriting it. Ewald and Hupfeld, however, assume four writers; the former two Elohists and two Jehovists, the latter three Elohists and one Jehovist; while the apologetic school of Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Keil, attempts to uphold the primitive theory of one single author.

generation of the earth with its animate and inanimate products, and all created things which bear upon and influence it visibly, the record gradually narrows into the history of man, and with the distinct aim of tracing the fate of the one chosen family and people, it singles out Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. The narrative dwells with careful minuteness upon their fortunes, laying especial stress on their intimate communion with God, and, with the three last, on the reiterated promises of the land which they should inherit: 'they and their seed after them.' The remainder of the human race is summarily treated of; the various founders of tribes and peoples that represent it being generally but briefly named. It is only in the case of brothers, or very near relations of the elect, that certain incidents of their lives are more fully recorded; plainly with the intention of proving the inferiority of their claims to divine consideration, or even of representing them as meet objects of the displeasure of the Almighty:-Ham, Ishmael, Esau. From c. xxxvii. to the end of the book, we have a term very differently understood-and thus exclusively the one chosen family of Jacob and his children before our eyes; and the strictly national character, which the narrative now assumes, excludes everything but the fortunes of this particular house. Here, also, an unbroken, flowing style takes the place of the former apparently sketchy and sometimes abrupt manner. With the occupation by Jacob's rapidly developing tribe of the land of Goshen, this first great patriarchal period is brought to a fitting close, and the second ushered in, when the tribe reappears after a lapse of time as a people. The Maker of all things, having by the creation of one man and one woman placed all mankind on an equal footing, by his sovereign will subsequently elected one righteous from out the mass of human corruption, and through this man's progeny-whose history is told at length -mankind is in the end to be reclaimed: -this seems the pith of the book, considered as a religious history of man.

A certain apparent difference of style and language; the occurrence of what seemed gaps on the one, and repetitions and contradictions on the other hand; the special headings (Toledoth) above mentioned; and, lastly, the different use of the term for the divine name, led very early to the question of the integrity of Genesis. Celsus, Isaac, C. Jasos, Aben Esra, Karlsstadt, Spinoza, all assumed smaller or larger interpolations; that is, pieces evidently not written by the author of the book himself, but added afterwards. It was not before 1753 that the 'Hypothesis of Documents,' based on the alternate use of the word Jehova (Everlasting) and Elohim (Almighty) was first broached. While the Talmud, Tertullian, St Augustine, Chrysostom, Jehudah Hallevi, &c., had all endeavoured to explain how the individual word was always necessary in the special passage where it occurred, Astruc, a Belgian physician, published in that year his Conjectures sur les Mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de Genèse, in which he endeavoured to shew that this writer, or rather editor of the book, had made use of two large and ten small-respectively 'Elohistic' and 'Jehovistic' -documents for his composition. This theory was at first received with silent contempt in the writer's own country. The only man who took any notice of it was Charban, who at the same time excused himself for refuting this 'absurd but dangerous' theory. It soon, however, found its way to Germany, where it was warmly advocated and developed by Eichhorn (Repert. and Introd.), Ilgen, and Gramberg. A further step was taken by Vater and Hartmann, to whom belongs the 'Hypothesis of Fragments,' or of

Considered from the remotest time as a book written under the influence of divine inspiration raised above all doubt as to its truthfulness, various efforts were made, from the days of the earliest interpreters to our own, to explain, by allegory and symbol, such of its statements as in their plain sense seemed incomprehensible to human understanding. Philo and the Alexandrines generally, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and others, in all seriousness spiritualised into divine parable that which was given as history; so much so, that St Augustine-exemplifying the spirit of the times-shortly after his conversion, explains paradise to represent nothing more than the happiness of mankind, the four rivers the four virtues, the serpent the devil, the coats of skin immortality, &c. In more recent times, however, after Luther had restored the belief in the literal meaning of the text, some have gone so far as to refer all that is not within the grasp of human reason to the region of myth, and to point to the obvious similarity between the biblical narrative of the paradise, its four rivers, the serpent, the apple, the fall, &c.; and certain legends, common to most eastern nations in the remotest times, as a proof that they were all derived from one and the same mythical source. Since the revival of science in the 16th c., another and much graver difficulty, however, has arisenviz., how certain distinct and explicit statements of the Scripture, allowing of but one translation, were to be reconciled with certain undeniable physical facts. It is more especially the Mosaic cosmogony, as contained in the opening chapters of Genesis, which has given rise to violent controversies. The age of the world, which, according to the Bible, would be 6000, or at most, between 7000 and 8000 years; its creation and the formation of the whole system of the universe in six days; have been declared by astronomers and geologists, who reckon the period of the existence of the earth by millions, of the universe by millions upon millions, to be subjects on which information must be sought elsewhere than in the Bible. Most of the apologists have to a certain degree granted this, and they only differ among themselves as to the extent to which the Bible, a book intended for religious instruction exclusively, has reserved such knowledge as has been or may be acquired by scientific investigation. The words of the biblical record themselves, so far from being in contradiction to the results of human knowledge, are said to convey, if not directly, yet by implication all that science more plainly teaches. The two principal methods of reconciliation advanced in this country are those of Dr Buckland and Hugh Miller (and their followers) respectively, the first of whom adopts and amplifies the Chalmerian