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William Wallace (Philosopher)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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WILLIAM WALLACE (1844-1897), Scottish philosopher, was born at Cupar-Fife on the 11th of May 1844, the son of a housebuilder. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two he was educated at St Andrews, whence he proceeded as an exhibitioner in 1864 to Balliol College, Oxford. He took a first class in Moderations, and in Lit. Hum. (1867), was Gaisford prizeman in 1867 (Greek prose) and Craven Scholar in 1869. Three years later he was appointed fellow, and in 1871 librarian, of Merton College. In 1882 he was elected Whyte's professor of moral philosophy in succession to T. H. Green, and retained the position until his death. He died on the 18th of February 1897 from the effects of a bicycle accident near Oxford. His manner was somewhat brusque and sarcastic, and on this account, in his undergraduate days at Balliol, he was known as "The Dorian." But he was greatly respected both as a man and as a lecturer. His philosophical works are almost entirely devoted to German, and especially to Hegelian, doctrines, which he expounded and criticized with great clearness and literary skill. In dealing with Hegel he was, unlike many other writers, successful in expressing himself in a lucid literary manner, without artificial and incomprehensible terminology.

His principal works were The Logic of Hegel (1873), which contains a translation of the Encyklopddie with an introduction, a second edition of which, with a volume entitled Prolegomena, appeared in 1892; Epicureanism (1880); Kant (Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1882); Life of Arthur Schopenhauer (1890); Hegel's Philosophy of Mind (translated from the Encyklopadie, with five introductory essays); Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and Ethics, being a selection from his papers edited with a biographical introduction by Edward Caird. He wrote several important articles for the 9th edition of the Ency. Brit., which, with some revision, have been repeated in the present work.