 Broadly speaking, it considers individual liberty to be the most important goal, because only through ensured liberty are the other inherent rights protected.There are many forms and derivations of liberalism, but their central conceptions of the meaning of life trace back to three main ideas.Early thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith saw humankind beginning in the state of nature, then finding meaning for existence through labor and property, and using social contracts to create an environment that supports those efforts.