François Hemsterhuis

Who was François Hemsterhuis?

François Hemsterhuis was a Dutch writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy.

The son of Tiberius Hemsterhuis, he was born at Franeker in the Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Leiden, where he studied Plato. Failing to obtain a professorship, he entered the service of the state, and for many years acted as secretary to the state council of the United Provinces. He died at the Hague on 7 July 1790. Through his philosophical writings he became acquainted with many distinguished persons--Goethe, Herder, Princess Adelheid Amalie Gallitzin, and especially Jacobi, with whom he had much in common. His most valuable contributions are in the department of aesthetics or the general analysis of feeling. His philosophy has been characterized as Socratic in content and Platonic in form. Its foundation was the desire for self-knowledge and truth, untrammelled by the rigid bonds of any particular system.

His most important works, all of which were written in French, are:

Lettre sur la sculpture, in which occurs the well-known definition of the Beautiful as "that which gives us the greatest number of ideas in the shortest space of time"

its continuation, Lettre fur les désirs