The Dutch philosopher Frans Hemsterhuis was born at Franeker, the son of the famous Greek scholar Tiberius Hemsterhuis. Frans Hemsterhuis was a clerk of the State Council and devoted his free hours to his favorite studies—numismatics, fine arts, and philosophy. In his last years his philosophy was very much influenced by his friendship with the Princess von Gallitzin, the wife of the Russian ambassador at The Hague. Thus, his life and work may be divided into two periods.

In the first period Hemsterhuis's Lettre sur l'homme et ses rapports (1772) was his principal work, preceded by two small, closely connected treatises, Lettre sur la sculpture (1765) and Lettre sur les désirs (1769). In Lettre sur la sculpture Hemsterhuis argued that the essence of the aesthetic experience is a longing to unite oneself with the art object. This concept became part of his theory of ethics...