Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Tallis in Wonderland

Temporal Thoughts About Eternity

Raymond Tallis takes time to think beyond time.

“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them an idea of eternity.”
George Bernard Shaw

It wouldn’t surprise me if quite a few people are sick of Raymond Tallis, but your columnist can’t get enough of himself. He finds the thought of his own extinction very uncongenial. Nevertheless, he cannot ignore the lengthening contrail of yesterdays, warning him that his store of tomorrows is rapidly depleting. Sometimes he feels like a paddleless canoeist being swept towards a cataract.

…