Wallace was born at Railway Place in
Cupar,
Fife, the son of master-builder James Wallace and Jane Kelloch. He was the elder of two brothers and was educated at Madras Academy (now
Bell Baxter High School) in Cupar before going on to
St Andrews University to study arts. He developed a strong interest in the natural world, which led him to spend much time on walks in the countryside, cycling, botany and mountaineering. Although his parents had encouraged him to take up the study of
theology as a precursor to a career in the clergy, Wallace realised that this would not best suit him and chose instead to study the
Classics. He was awarded an
exhibition at
Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied from 1864. In 1867 he became a
fellow of Merton College. He gained his
Bachelor of Arts the following year, gaining a first class in
Moderations and in
Literae Humaniores. He was also awarded the
Gaisford Prize in 1867 for his work on Greek prose, becoming a tutor at Merton in the same year, and was elected as a
Craven Scholar in 1869. Wallace married Janet Barclay, a childhood friend from Cupar, on 4 April 1872. The couple had three children, a daughter and two sons. His younger brother Edwin Wallace studied at Oxford's
Lincoln College and later served as vice-provost of
Worcester College between 1881 and his death in 1884. In 1882, Wallace became the successor to Thomas Hill Green as White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, a position which he held along with the Merton tutorship until his death fifteen years later. Wallace's work focused primarily on the study and diffusion of the ideas of the German philosophers
Kant,
Fichte,
Herder, and
Hegel, of whom it was said that his knowledge was exceptional. He was highly regarded as a teacher and lecturer, usually speaking without notes in a style described as "humorous, elegant, and yet earnest" that "produced a unique impression of insight and sincerity upon his students." He sought to encourage his students to think critically and aimed to explain the sometimes arcane and technical nature of philosophical constructs in a way that was both readily understandable and expressed imaginatively, for instance commenting in one of his works that "the
Absolute Idea [of Hegel] may be compared to the old man who utters the same creed as a child, but for whom it is pregnant with the significance of a lifetime". ==Published works==