Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1 (1977) Version 113

Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1

Ellen G. White

1977

Information about this Book

Overview

This ePub publication is provided as a service of the Ellen G. White Estate. It is part of a larger collection. Please visit the Ellen G. White Estate website for a complete list of available publications.

About the Author

Ellen G. White (1827-1915) is considered the most widely translated American author, her works having been published in more than 160 languages. She wrote more than 100,000 pages on a wide variety of spiritual and practical topics. Guided by the Holy Spirit, she exalted Jesus and pointed to the Scriptures as the basis of one's faith.

Further Links

A Brief Biography of Ellen G. White About the Ellen G. White Estate

End User License Agreement

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? Copyright 2010 by the Ellen G. White Estate, Inc.

For more information about the author, publishers, or how you can support this service, please contact the Ellen G. White Estate: (email address). We are thankful for your interest and feedback and wish you God's blessing as you read.

Foreword

In Ellen G. White's lifetime (1827-1915) psychology, the science which treats of the mind and its powers and functions, was in its infancy. Yet there emerges throughout her writings a distinctive philosophy in which guidelines in this science and to mental health are clearly portrayed.

The purpose of this compilation is to bring the Ellen G. White statements in this broad, important, and sometimes controversial field together for convenient study. Seventh-day Adventists and others with their conviction that Ellen G. White wrote under the influence of the spirit of God treasure guidance in a field so vital to all humanity at a time when schools of psychological thought are varied and changing.

The soundness of Ellen White's views in the areas of physiology, nutrition, and education, as well as in other fields, has already been demonstrated. There is no doubt that as research in psychology and mental health progresses, her reputation for setting forth sound psychological principles will be still more firmly established. To the devout Adventist this work, Mind, Character, and Personality, will supply many answers. We are certain that as truth unfolds, the positions taken here will appeal more and more to all thoughtful readers.

In these circumstances the occasional appearance of such expressions as "I saw," "I was shown," "I have been instructed," are not only understood, but are welcomed for the assurance they give that the concepts portrayed originated with Him who shaped the human mind.

In assembling this material in the White Estate offices there has been no attempt to select passages that support views advocated by various authorities in the fields of education and psychology. No preconceived views held by the compilers are represented here. Rather, an effort has been made to allow Ellen White to freely propound her views. This has been accomplished by drawing from the vast store of her published writings, penned through six decades, as they appear in current or out-of-print books, pamphlets, her thousands of periodical articles, and in her voluminous manuscript and correspondence files housed in the White Estate vault.

A large portion of Mind, Character, and Personality presents general guiding principles. This is interspersed and supplemented with materials setting forth practical admonitions and counsels in the setting of the relationship of the teacher and the student, the minister and the parishioner, the physician and the patient, or the parent and the child.

The counsels in scores of instances addressed to an executive, minister, physician, teacher, editor, husband, housewife, or youth, may in their revelation of circumstances and advice given, partake somewhat of the form of case histories. Attention should be directed to the principle involved.

Obviously Ellen White did not write as a psychologist. She did not employ terminology in common usage in the field of psychology today. In fact, the reader must even approach her uses of the terms "psychology", "phrenology," etc., with understanding. The knowledgeable reader, however, will be deeply impressed by her unusual insight into basic principles of psychology, which these writings evince. The Ellen G. White statements on the various aspects of the mind, its vital place in the human experience, its potentials, and the factors that lead to its optimum functioning as drawn together in a logical sequence yield a choice addition to the Ellen G. White books issued posthumously. These help us to comprehend what man is and to understand his relationship to his earthly environment, to God, and to the universe.

Ten years ago, when work was begun on this compilation, it was thought that it would have its widest appeal to those studying particularly in the field of mental health. Hence, an arrangement has been followed that would make statements readily available to those considering classified areas. The researcher should understand that while an attempt has been made to avoid redundancy as much as possible, a few key statements are repeated in different chapters because the student would expect

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