Hemsterhuis, Franciscus

Hemsterhuis, Franciscus (born Dec. 27, 1721, Franeker, Neth.—died July 7, 1790, The Hague) was a Dutch philosopher and aesthetician whose works influenced the German Romantic thinkers Johann Gottfried von Herder, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and Friedrich Holderlin. He sought to coordinate Rationalism and sensationalism, holding that all things in the perceptible universe provide evidence of a unifying force or spirit.