Wills - Revocation by Judicial Legislation

Wills and their revocation as we know them are peculiarly the result of the actions and reactions of our common and statute law. We are sufficiently familiar with statutes, declaratory of the common law, in derogation thereof, and creating entirely new principles of law. We also know law the result of no legislative act. Whatever may or may not be admitted about court-made law, we see the undoubted fact that the great body of our law is the outgrowth of decisions applying to new conditions principles of law found in analogous cases, whereby the common law is able to adapt itself to our changing conditions, and keep step with the march of progress. We are not unaccustomed to judicial interpretation that practically nullifies statutes, or gives to them an effect that would surprise the legislators originating them. We do not so often come upon pretty open contests between court and legislature, cases of judicial usurpation resuiting in rules of law flatly contradictory to the words of the statutes