Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, A dictionary of arts and sciences, compiled upon a new plan … > Volume 2, C-L

GEN ( 670
GENDER, among grammarians, a divifion of nouns, or
names, to diftinguiih the two fexes.
This was the original intention of gender ; but, af¬
terwards, other words which had no proper relation,
either to the one fex or the other, had genders afligned
them, rather out of caprice than reafon ; which is at
length eftablilhed by cuftom. fience genders vary ac¬
cording to the languages, or even according to the
words introduced from one language into another.
Thus arbor, in Latin, is feminine ; but arbre,\n French,
is mafculine: and dens, in Latin, is mafculine ; but
dent, in French, is feminine.
GENEALOGY, an enumeration of aferies of anceftors;
or a fummary account of the reLtions snd alliances of
a perfon or family, both in the direct and collateral line.
GENEP, a town in the dutchy of Cleeve, in Germany,
fituated on the Nierfe and Maefe, ten miles weft of
Cleeve: E. long. S° 3°'> and N.Jat. 51° 40'.
GENERAL, an appellation given to whatever belongs
to a whole genus. See Genus.
General charge, in law. See Chargeenter heir.
General terms, among logicians, thofe which are
made the figns of general ideas.
General of an army, in the art of war, he who com¬
mands in chief.
The office of a general is, to regulate the march and
encampment of the army ; in the day of battle to chufe
out the moft advantageous ground ; to make the difpo-
frtion of the army; to poft the artillery; and where
there is occafion, to fend his orders by his aids de
camp. At a fiege, he is to caufe the place to be in¬
verted ; to order the approaches and attacks; to vifit
the works ; and to fend out detachments to fecure his
convoys.
GENERATING Line, or Figure, in geometry, is
that which by its motion produces any other plane or
folid figure.
GENERATION, in phyfiology, the adt of procreating
and producing a being fimilar to the parent.
According to Ariftotle, the male animals contain ^he
principle, and the female the matter of generation :
for though both were furniffied indeed with a feminal
liquor, yet the femen of the males alone was prolific.
The moderns, on the other hand, as well thofe who
contend for the fyftem of generation from eggs, as
they who adopt that of the animalcules in the male-
feed, pretend that females have no fuch feminal liquor
at all, and that vs hat was commonly taken for it was
fome other animal fluid.
Harvey is of opinion, that all females are furniffied
with eggs, and that the embryos, or young animals,
are formed in the fame maimer as a chick in the egg of
any bird Generation, according to this celebrated
phyfician, is effedted wholly by means of the uterus, or
womb; which conceives the foetus by a kind of con¬
tagion communicated to it by the male-feed, much in
the fame way as the load-done communicates magne-
tifm to iron. This contagion, he thinks, adls not
only on the uterus, but is communicated to the whole
body of the female, which is altogether prolific ; tho’
the uterus, he acknowledges,, is the only part that is
) GEN
capable of conceiving the foetus, juft as the brain is
alone capable of forming ideas and notions. Agreeable
to this dodtrine of Harvey, Steno and other anato-
mifts have pretended to difcover certain eggs in the
ovaries or tefticles of women ; which Mr Buflfon de¬
nies to be the cafe, affirming, that there are no fuch
eggs to be found in the ovaries or tefticles of women.
vVe cannot enter into a detail of the reafonings for
and againft the fyftem of generation from eggs ; and
ffiall therefore only obferve, that its advocates pretend
to have difcovered eggs in all the females on which
they made obfervations ; that the largeft of thofe found
in women did not exceed the bignefs of a pea; that
they are extremely fmail in young girls under fourteen,
but that age and commerce with men makes them grow
larger; that there are more than twenty fuch eggs in
each ovary or tefticle; that they are fecundated in the
ovary by the fpirituous and volatile part of the male-
feed ; that they afterwards are detached and fall into
the uterus through the Fallopian tubes ; that here the
foetus is formed of the internal fubftance of the egg,
and the placenta of the exterior part.
Leewenhoek is the author of another fyftem of ge¬
neration, from animalcules in the male feed. He tells
us, he difcovered many thoufands of thefe in a drop
lefs than a grain of fand. They are found in the fe¬
men of all males whatever, but not in that of females ;
and are fo fmall, that 3.000,000,000- of them are not
equal to a grain of fand, whofe diameter is but the
hundredth part of an inch. When any of thefe ani¬
malcules gets into an egg, fit to receive it, and this
falls into the womb through the Fallopian tubes, the
humours which diftil through the veflels of the womb,
penetrating the coats of the egg, fwell and dilate it, as
the fap of the earth does feed thrown into it. The pla¬
centa begins to appear like a little cloud, upon one fide
of the external coat of the egg ; and, at the fame time,
the fpine of the embryo-animalcule is grown fo big, as
to become vifible; and a little afterwards, the cere¬
brum and cerebellum appear like two bladders; and
the eyes ftand next goggling out of the head ; then the.
beating of the heart, or pun&um faliens, >is plainly to
be feen ; and the extremities difcover themfelves laft
of all.
Thefe animalcules are of different figures, fome like
tadpoles, and others like eels. In the femen of a man,
and in that of a dog, there have been difcovered two
different kinds of them, the one fuppofed to be males
and the other females. Some even pretend to have
fcen animalcules difengage themfelves from the mem¬
branes that furround them ; and that they then appeared
perfe&ly like men, with legs, arms, fac. like thofe of
the human body 1
All the advocates for the fyftem of generation from
animalcules ftrongly oppofe that from eggs. They
contend, that thefe animalcules cannot be looked upon
as the inhabitants of the femen, fince they were of
greater extent than the liquor itfelf; not to mention,
that no fuch animals are found in any other liquors of
the body; and fince females have nothing fimilar to
thefe animals, they think it manifeft that the prolific
principle