It may fittingly be said of the Fifth Men that they were the first to attaintrue human proportions of body and mind. On the average they were more thantwice as tall as the First Men, and much taller than the Second Men. Theirlower limbs had therefore to be extremely massive compared with the torso whichthey had to support. Thus, upon the ample pedestal of their feet, they stoodlike columns of masonry. Yet though their proportions were in a mannerelephantine, there was a remarkable precision and even delicacy in the volumesthat composed them. Their great arms and shoulders, dwarfed somewhat by theirstill mightier legs, were instruments not only of power but also of fineadjustment. Their hands also were fashioned both for power and for minutecontrol; for, while the thumb and forefinger constituted a formidable vice, thedelicate sixth finger had been induced to divide its tip into two Lilliputianfingers and a corresponding thumb. The contours of the limbs were sharplyvisible, for the body bore no hair, save for a close, thick skull-cap which, inthe original stock, was of ruddy brown. The well-marked eyebrows, when drawndown, shaded the sensitive eyes from the sun. Elsewhere there was no need ofhair, for the brown skin had been so ingeniously contrived that it maintainedan even temperature alike in tropical and subarctic climates, with no aideither from hair or clothes. Compared with the great body, the head was notlarge, though the brain capacity was twice that of the Second Men. In theoriginal pair of individuals the immense eyes were of a deep violet, thefeatures strongly moulded and mobile. These facial characters had not beenspecially designed, for they seemed unimportant to the Fourth Men; but the playof biological forces resulted in a face not unlike that of the Second Men,though with an added and indescribable expression which no human face hadhitherto attained.
Among the familiar things that he would encounter would be creaturesrecognizably human yet in his view grotesque. While he himself laboured underthe weight of his own body, these giants would be easily striding. He wouldconsider them very sturdy, often thick-set, folk, but he would be compelled toallow them grace of movement and even beauty of proportion. The longer hestayed with them the more beauty he would see in them, and the lesscomplacently would he regard his own type. Some of these fantastic men andwomen he would find covered with fur, hirsute, or mole-velvet, revealing theunderlying muscles. Others would display brown, yellow or ruddy skin, and yetothers a translucent ash-green, warmed by the under-flowing blood, As aspecies, though we are all human, we are extremely variable in body and mind,so variable that superficially we seem to be not one species but many. Somecharacters, of course, are common to all of us, The traveller might perhaps besurprised by the large yet sensitive hands which are universal, both in men andwomen. In all of us the outermost finger bears at its tip three minute organsof manipulation, rather similar to those which were first devised for the FifthMen, These excrescences would doubtless revolt our visitor. The pair ofoccipital eyes, too, would shock him; so would the upward-looking astronomicaleye on the crown, which is peculiar to the Last Men, This organ was socunningly designed that, when fully extended, about a hand-breadth from itsbony case, it reveals the heavens in as much detail as your smallerastronomical telescopes. Apart from such special features as these, there isnothing definitely novel about us; though every limb, every contour, showsunmistakably that much has happened since the days of the First Men. We areboth more human and more animal. The primitive explorer might be more readilyimpressed by our animality than our humanity, so much of our humanity would liebeyond his grasp. He would perhaps at first regard us as a degraded type. Hewould call us faun-like, and in particular cases, ape-like, bear-like, ox-like,marsupial, or elephantine. Yet our general proportions are definitely human inthe ancient manner. Where gravity is not insurmountable, the erect biped formis bound to be most serviceable to intelligent land animals; and so, after longwanderings, man has returned to his old shape. Moreover, if our observer werehimself at all sensitive to facial expression, he would come to recognize inevery one of our innumerable physiognomic types an indescribable butdistinctively human look, the visible sign of that inward and spiritual gracewhich is not wholly absent from his own species. He would perhaps say, "Thesemen that are beasts are surely gods also." He would be reminded of those oldEgyptian deities with animal heads. But in us the animal and the humaninterpenetrate in every feature, in every curve of the body, and with infinitevariety. He would observe us, together with hints of the long-extinct Mongol,Negro, Nordic, and Semetic, many outlandish features and expressions, derivingfrom the sub-human period on Neptune, or from Venus. He would see in every limbunfamiliar contours of muscle, sinew or bone, which were acquired long afterthe First Men had vanished, Besides the familiar eye-colours, he would discoverorbs of topaz, emerald, amethyst and ruby, and a thousand varieties of these,But in all of us he would see also, if he had discernment, a facial expressionand bodily gesture peculiar to our own species, a certain luminous, yet pungentand ironical significance, which we miss almost wholly in the earlier humanfaces.
Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide Ebook Rar
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