§ 30. =The Types of Idea.=—Idea takes its plan from perception; and ideas may therefore be classified, like perceptions, as qualitative, temporal and spatial. When, however, we speak of =types of idea=, we usually have a different classification in view. Our ideas differ as our equipment of imagery differs; some minds are rich in visual or auditory images, others are poor or deficient. When first these differences were brought to light, they seemed to be permanent and clearly marked; children, especially, were classed _as eye-minded, ear-minded, and touch-minded_ or motor-minded, according as their ideas consisted predominantly of visual, auditory, or kinæsthetic images; and it was thought no less necessary to discover a child’s type, and to instruct him in accordance with it, than it is to test the colour-vision of pilots and engineers. Moreover, since all ideas may be translated into words, and since verbal ideas may also be visual, auditory or motor,—ideas of the word seen, heard, or spoken,—three sub-types were added to the main types of idea; _the verbal-visual, the verbal-auditory, and the verbal-motor_. The doctrine of types found support in pathology; thus, the famous French physician J. M. Charcot reports a case of eye-mindedness in which visual ideas were suddenly lost. The patient writes: “I possessed at one time a great faculty of picturing to myself persons who interested me, colours and objects of every kind; I made use of this faculty extensively in my studies. I read anything I wanted to learn, and then shutting my eyes I saw again quite clearly the letters with their every detail. All of a sudden this internal vision absolutely disappeared. Now I cannot picture to myself the features of my children or my wife, or any other object of my daily surroundings. I dream simply of speech. I am obliged to _say_ things which I wish to retain in my memory, whereas formerly it was sufficient for me to photograph them in my eye.”