November 29th How Ideas Originate David Hume (1711–76). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Vol. 37, pp. 299-303 of The Harvard Classics Did you ever stop to think just how you thought? What inner emotions, what outer influences make up the fathomless depths of mind and intellect? Hume explains how we draw our thoughts, then clumsily put them into tangible shape called ideas.