ABSTRACT
§1. The phenomenon of inherited wealth is at once very curious, very important and very much neglected. “For half a century and more, the rights and responsibilities of living men may be determined by an instrument which was of no effect, until the author of it was in his grave and had no longer any concern with the world or its affairs. The power of the dead hand is so familiar a feature in our law, that we accept it as a matter of course, and have some difficulty in realising what a very singular phenomenon it really is” 1 Under almost all systems of law, where the ownership of private property is concerned, the living are allowed to step into the shoes of the dead, either under wills or under various legal rules of succession. This is a very curious fact.
