These three thinkers contributed to the political philosophy of liberalism (not to be mistaken with the contemporary political ideology of the same thing). Liberalism held that each individual in society had, in virtue of being an individual, an ability to conceive of and pursue a conception of the good. An individual thus conceived (the definition is largely attributable to Locke) had a neeed for protection from the state (this idea tracks to Paine) and this protection was best delivered by breaking up the state into a varied of departments which each had a limited sphere of authority (Montesquieu).