Dedication:
For Sam and Sophie with all my love
Alis Volbitis Propriis
You will fly with your own wings.
Epigraph:
John Wilkins (one of the founders of the Royal Society and Lord Bishop of Chester) outlined the four ways that a man might fly:
1) with the help of angels;
2) with the help of fowls;
3) with wings fastened to his body; and
4) in a 'flying chariot', meaning presumably a device or vehicle powered by something other than human muscular effort.
Wilkins judged the first three rather improbable, and in this he was largely correct. Birds and angels are strangely unwilling to assist humans in flying, whilst attempts to fasten wings to humans are notoriously dangerous.
- Pat Shipman, Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight
Epigraph:
Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks?
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom?...Doth the eagle mount
up at thy command?
- Job xxxix