Measured in terms of mechanical power, men when the Constitution was formed were Lilliputians as compared with the Brobdingnagians of our day, when man outflies the eagle, outswims the fish, and by his conquest and utilization of the invisible forces of nature has become the superman; and yet the Constitution of 1787 is, in most of its essential principles, still the Constitution of 1922.

In the extent and the variety of inventions, in their rapid improvement and utilization for human needs, and in general scientific progress, the sixty-three years of the Victorian age surpassed all the rest of historic time.