An eccentric and impoverished student, he remained at Spring Hill until 1869, completing his theological studies as well as gaining a University of London BA degree.

In 1869–1870, Ward won a scholarship to Germany, where he attended the lectures of Isaac Dormer in Berlin before moving to Göttingen to study under Hermann Lotze.

Initially a non-collegiate student, Ward won a scholarship to Trinity College in 1873, and achieved a first class in the moral sciences tripos in 1874.

Ward was a strong supporter of women's education, and met his Irish-born suffragist wife-to-be, Mary (née Martin), when she attended one of his series of lectures.

Ward was elected to the new Chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic in 1897, his students including G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell,[1] Mohammed Iqbal and George Stout.

[5][6] In his Gifford Lectures and his book Naturalism and Agnosticism (1899) he argued against materialism and dualism and supported a form of panpsychism where reality consists in a plurality of centers of activity.