[1] Early in his acquaintanceship with Gladstone, Malcolm MacColl persuaded the Liberal politician to provide funds for Hugh's education at Oxford.

It was proposed to send him to Oxford University's St. Edmund Hall, but Gladstone made this conditional on Hugh MacColl agreeing to take orders in the Church of England.

He also corresponded, and argued in print, with the young Bertrand Russell, and reviewed Alfred North Whitehead's 1898 Universal Algebra for Mind magazine.

While described by a recent critic as "best left unread",[6] the novels reveal social and moral values to which the author gave full expression in his 1909 publication Man's Origin, Destiny, and Duty, an apology for Christianity.

The December 1999 issue of the magazine Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic published the proceedings of a 1998 conference devoted to MacColl's work.