 The abbé Dubos, the marquise de Lambert, and Montesquieu, among others, continued this line of thought in the early eighteenth century. They belonged to a group of acquaintances that frequented the same social circles, including Lambert’s own salon. Because their reflections on taste were closely tied to their sense of worldly politeness, they shared a disdain for professional critics and any semblance of pedantry. They were less concerned with defining beauty and more intent on examining what happens in the mind and body of the viewer when she contemplates a pleasing object. Their emphasis on pleasure and sentiment was sensualist, based on input from the senses; in Montesquieu’s case, sensualism becomes frankly hedonistic.