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… is from page 268 of Herbert Spencer’s insightful July 1853 Westminster Review essay, “Over-Legislation,” as this essay is reprinted in Liberty Fund’s 1981 collection [2] of some of Spencer’s writings, The Man Versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom [3]:
Ever since society existed Disappointment has been preaching, “Put not your trust in legislation”; and yet the trust in legislation seems scarcely diminished.