into two separate species, the Second Men and some sub-humans. The First Men do not become completely extinct until shortly after the emergence of the Second Men. Second Men. (Chapters 7– 9) The Second Men came into existence ten million years after the fall of the First Men. "Their heads, indeed, were large even for their bodies, and their necks massive. Their hands were huge, but finely moulded...their legs were stouter...their feet had lost their separate toes...blonde hirsute appearance...Their eyes were large, and often jade green, their features firm as carved granite, yet mobile and lucent. ...not till they were fifty did they reach maturity. At about 190 their powers began to fail..." Unlike our species, egotism is virtually unknown to them. At the acme of their highly advanced civilization, just as they are about to create a superior human species by genetic engineering, a protracted war with the Martians finally ends with the Martians extinct and the Second Men gone into eclipse. Third Men. (Chapter 10) "Scarcely more than half the stature of their predecessors, these beings were proportionally slight and lithe. Their skin was of a sunny brown, covered with a luminous halo of red-gold hairs... golden eyes... faces were compact as a cat's muzzle, their lips full, but subtle at the corners. Their ears, objects of personal pride and of sexual admiration, were extremely variable both in individuals and in races. ... But the most distinctive feature of the Third Men was their great lean hands, on which were six versatile fingers, six antennae of living steel." Deeply interested in music (to the point of developing a religion based on the worship of music) and the design of living organisms. The Third Men eventually split into two factions: one that sought to create a subspecies of mediums, and one that focused on designing humans that consist almost entirely of brain tissue. Fourth Men. (Chapter 11) Giant brains bred by one faction of the Third Men. For a long time they help govern their creators, but eventually their rule becomes oppressive and the Third Men rebel. The Fourth Men prevail by recruiting as servants a subspecies of Third Men prone to hypnotic suggestion (the ultimate product of the effort to breed a mediumistic subspecies). The docile subspecies of the Third Men exterminate the original subspecies, save for a few individuals to be used as lab specimens. After the