transcend

It is truly beyond human nature to possess wings and fly on high at one's own will. But to receive this gift of wings, almost contrary to nature, this is surely like the possession strengthened by exercise, of a marvelous ability for contemplation, so that you may when you will, penetrate on the wing of clear sight into the difficult regions of secret knowledge, impenetrable to mere human effort. Truly we begin to be winged creatures, when having received the gift of grace divinely, we transcend the bounds of our human state, by the flight of our contemplation ...

Is it not a thing beyond human nature to see past things which are not existing now, or to see future things which are not yet? so also to see present things which are not present to the sense, to see the secrets of another's heart, a thing not subject to any sense; to have knowledge of divine things which are above the sense sphere?

-- Richard of Saint-Victor Benjamin Major
Translated by Clare Kirchberger