HEMSTERHUIS, FRANCOIS 79o), Dutch writer on aesthetics and moral philosophy, was born at Franeker, on Dec. 27, 1 7 21. Educated at the university of Leyden, he was for many years secretary to the state council of the United Provinces. He died at The Hague on July 7, 179o. Through his philosophical writings he met many distinguished persons—Goethe, Herder, Princess Amalia of Gallitzin, and especially Jacobi, who, like himself, was an idealist. His philosophy, strongly platonic, was founded on the desire for self-knowledge and truth.
His chief works are: Lettre sur la sculpture (1769), 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 sur les desirs (177o) ; Lettre sur l'homme et ses rapports (1772); Sopyle (1778), an attack on materialism; Aristee (1779), the "theodicy" of Hemsterhuis; Simon (1787), discussing the will, the imagination, the moral prin ciple (both passive and active) ; Alexis (1787) ; Lettre sur l'atheisme (1787). The last collected edition of his works ap peared at Leipzig 1912, 2 vols.
See C. Boulan, F. Hemsterhuis le Socrate Holiandais (1924) ; J. E. Poritzky, Franz Hemsterhuis (1926).