… is from page 11 of the 1991 Liberty Press edition of Bruno Leoni’s 1961 volume, Freedom and the Law (original emphasis):
Both the Romans and the English shared the idea that the law is something to be discovered more than to be enacted and that nobody is so powerful in his society as to be in a position to identify his own will with the law of the land.
Legislation is made. Diktats are made. Law, in contrast, is never made (which is why the term “lawmakers” when used to describe legislators is wholly inaccurate). Instead, law evolves spontaneously into existence and into whatever present form and content it takes. Unlike legislation and other government diktats, law is the result of human action but not of human design.