1821, p.

191.
When the leaders of the American revolution sought for certainty in their argument against George the Third they too found it in the fact that men 'are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.' Rousseau and his French followers rested these rights on a presumed social contract.

Human rights stood upon that contract as the elephant upon the tortoise, though the contract itself, like the tortoise, was apt to stand upon nothing at all.
At this point Bentham, backed by the sense of humour of mankind, swept aside the whole conception of a science of politics deduced from natural right.

'What sort of a thing,' he asked, 'is a natural right, and where does the maker live, particularly in Atheist's Town, where they are most rife ?'[27] [27] _Escheat vice Taxation_, Bentham's Works, vol.ii.p.

598.
Bentham himself believed that he had found the standard in the fact that all men seek pleasure and avoid pain.