And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

Read this line from The War of the Worlds:
The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence.

What does this line tell you about human beings?
Though humans are quite intelligent, they do not have much to challenge them anymore. Though humans are thoughtful, they waste much time just trying to live day-to-day. Though humans live their lives unaware, they do know that they will not live forever. Though humans struggle constantly to survive, they often glimpse times of peaceful thought.