Some men may avoid doing wills in order to bottle up the anger they feel toward their relatives. Others use wills to let such anger out. Because a will is a symbolic emotional expression, it can be a weapon, and some men have fired it with venom. Heinrich Heine, the German poet, left his entire estate to his wife on the condition that she remarry, because then, Heine wrote, there would be at least one man to regret his death. Another man's will said: ''To my son I leave the pleasure of earning a living. For 28 years he thought the pleasure was mine, but he was mistaken . . .'' The Fifth Earl of Pembroke gave ''to the Lieutenant General Cromwell one of my words, the which he must want, seeing that he hath never kept any of his own.'' Perhaps the most vindictive will of all was written by a German who lived in Munich. It stipulated that a wake be held in an upper story of his residence. When his relatives gathered around the coffin, the floor collapsed, and most of the mourners were killed. It was later discovered that shortly before his death, the man had sawed through the supporting beams. Instead of taking his money with him, he took his heirs.

Will-making causes some men to feel a loss of power over their wealth and a lack of control over their families. Yet, if a man is well-advised, a will can be a kind of last hurrah. Thomas Jefferson used his will to expand his creation, the University of Virginia. Other men's wills have constructively perpetuated a family business or converted such a business into a dynamic charitable entity. And a will can be used to regulate the personal conduct of relatives by the uses of conditional bequests - bequests which result in disinheritance for failing to complete an education, for smoking, drinking or even marrying certain prohibited persons.

Fear of death, inability to quantify loving relationships in terms of one's property and repression of anger over loss of power and control are but a few of the many reasons why men do not make wills. These and most others are weak excuses for inaction. The will-making experience can and should be a healthy and open confrontation with a man's true feelings about himself, his death, his property and the persons and causes he loves. After all, the testator will be gone forever when his will takes effect; he will no longer be paying taxes or involved in family fights. Accordingly, a man need not be a thanatologist to realize that he must get his psychological satisfaction from a life well-lived and from an estate well-planned to be a final, fitting expression of his philosophy of life. As Ishmael said in ''Moby Dick'' after signing his will, ''I felt all the easier: a stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived . . . I survived myself.''