Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

42 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
According to Smuts, personality is not inherited. He believes that the individual
inherits a body and mental structure slightly different from parents and ancestors. But
above this organic and psychic inheritance, there is an individual personality which
makes a unique and different blend of the organic and psychic composition. Smuts
(1926) writes:
What we inherit is not a ready - made affair but a wide possibility and potency of
molding ourselves in our lives . . . . What above all is inherited is freedom. (p. 247)
Smuts and Hoyman differ in the status given personality within the individual.
Hoyman considers the “ self ” as the integrating core of personality. He writes:
“ The self is . . . not a separate agent or entity; and it involves both self - awareness
and death awareness. ” According to Smuts, personality is the integrating core of
mind and body. He considered personality the highest achievement of holistic synthesis
in nature. Smuts (1926) viewed personality “ as a whole which in its unique
synthetic processes continuously performs . . . the creative transmutation of the
lower into the higher in the holistic series ” (p. 304). Smuts considered the evolutionary
emergents of personality to be the absolute values of truth, beauty, and
goodness, and the holistic ideals of self - realization, creativeness, freedom, and
wholeness. Smuts ’ holistic perspective encompasses Hoyman ’ s (1970) view that
“ spiritual and ethical values are central to human personality development and
mental health. ”
Smuts and Hoyman complement each other in criticizing the view of psychology
and education regarding personality. Hoyman (1972b) considered his viewpoint consistent
with Arnold Toynbee, who “ stressed depersonalization and the destruction of
human personality as the most critical problem of our time. ” From this premise,
Hoyman criticized the personality development approach used by health educators. He
considered it too sporadic, superficial, and na ï ve to be of much justice to personality.
Smuts criticized the analytic method of psychology, which generalized and averaged
personality. According to Smuts (1926), psychology “ deals with the human mind, not
in its individual uniqueness . . . . the individual differences are . . . considered negligible
” (p. 278). From this premise, Smuts advocated the establishment of a separate discipline
for the study of personality. He suggests the name Personology for this new
science of personality, whose domain would be psychology and all sciences which deal
with the human mind and body. The method of Personology would be biographical,
with the goal to study
human personalities as living wholes and unities in successive phases of their development
. . . . [s]ynthetically, rather than analytically in the manner of psychology.
(p. 262)
Smuts ’ holistic perspective encompasses and complements the views of personality
expressed by Hoyman and Oberteuffer.