 While his parent's political moderation and rejection of Afrikaner exclusivism had left him largely unencumbered by any innate prejudices, it was his time at Victoria College which saw him develop his own independent political outlook.These views developed in tandem with another of Smuts's fixations, his philosophical pursuit of the embodiment of unity.This intellectual quest was later to develop into his philosophy of Holism, but even at this early undeveloped stage he brought these ideas to bear in shaping his political opinions.