pretergeneration

plural pretergenerations

1. rarePreternatural generation; monstrous birth

   In the Novum Organum Bacon made a threefold division of natural history: the first being concerned with species, the second with monsters, and the third with artificial products; or the history of generation, pretergeneration and arts.

   1958, Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science: The seventeenth century

   1 more example

   Because Bacon does not provide any analysis of pretergenerations in his natural histories, I claim that the process of generating artificial individuals that deviate from their species exhibits important aspects of Bacon's view on how nature is constrained and deviated from its own course.

   2019, Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Contingency and Natural Order in Early Modern Science, page 183