A political outlook attaching supreme importance to safeguarding the freedom of the individual within society. Liberal ideas first took shape in the struggle for religious toleration in the 16th and 17th centuries. The liberal view was that religion was a private matter; it was not the business of the state to enforce a particular creed. This later developed into a more general doctrine of the limited and constitutional state, whose boundaries were set by the natural rights of the individual (for instance in the political thought of Locke). Around 1800 liberalism became associated with the doctrines of the free market and reducing the role of the state in the economic sphere. This tendency was reversed later in the 19th century with the arrival of ‘New Liberalism’, committed to social reform and welfare legislation. In contemporary debate both schools of thought are represented. Liberals unite in upholding the importance of personal liberty in the face of encroachment by the state, leading to demands for constitutional government, civil rights, and the protection of privacy.