FRANCOIS

See also:

• FRANCOIS HEMSTERHUIS (1721-1790)
• HEMSTERHUIS, TIBERIUS (1685-1766)

HEMSTERHUIS (1721-1790)  , Dutch writer on aesthetics and `moral philosophy, son of Tiberius Hemsterhuis, was born at Franeker in Holland, on the 27th of December 1721 . 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 the 7th of July 1790 . Through his philosophical writings he became acquainted with many distinguished persons—Goethe, Herder, Princess Amalia of Gallitzin, and especially Jacobi, with whom he had much in common . Both were idealists, and their works suffer from a similar lack of arrangement, although distinguished by elegance of form and refined sentiment . 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 (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 deities (17i0); Lettre sur l'homme et ses rapports (1772), in which the " moral organ " and the theory of knowledge are discussed; Sopyle (1778), a dialogue on the relation between the soul and the body, and also an attack on materialism; Aristee (1779), the theodicy " of Hemsterhuis, discussing the existence of God and his relation to man; Simon (1787), on the four faculties of the soul, which are the will, the imagination, the moral principle (which is both passive and active) ; Alexis (1787), an attempt to prove that :here are three golden ages, the last being the life beyond the grave; Lettre sur l'atheisme (1787) . The best collected edition of his works is by P . S .

Meijboom (1846-185o) ; see also S . A . Gronemann, F.'Hemsterhuis, de Nederlandische Wijsgeer (

Utrecht, 1867) ; E . Grucker, Francois Hemsterhuis, sa vie et ses eeatvres (Paris, 1866) ; E . Meyer, Der Philosoph Franz Hemsterhuis (Breslau, 1893), with bibliographical notice .