That the instinct of self-preservation is stronger among Europeans than among Chinese is an unproved and perhaps unprovable thesis: though it is true that Chinese women seem to have a contempt for death which possibly arises from a quiescent imagination. One reason why suicides are less common among Europeans is that the would-be suicide in a country like England must not only face the natural fear of death and (if he happens to believe in the teachings of his Church) the probability or certainty of terrible sufferings in another state of existence, but he is also obliged to contemplate the dishonour that will besmirch his name and the consequent misery and discomfort that will be brought upon his family. These deterrent considerations can seldom affect the would-be suicide in China. Both Confucianism and Buddhism, indeed, forbid self-destruction: but Confucianism is vague on the subject of life beyond the grave, and Buddhism as taught in China lays no stress on any terrors that may await the suicide. The northern Chinese, including those of Weihaiwei, are inclined to the belief that a suicide's only punishment consists in being obliged as a lonely earth-bound spirit to wander about in the neighbourhood of his old home until he can persuade some living person to follow his example. When his victim yields to his sinister suggestions and commits suicide the first ghost is set free: though what use he makes of his freedom seems to be a doubtful point. It then becomes the second ghost's turn to look for a victim. Thus all apparently motiveless suicides are supposed to be caused by the ghostly promptings of those who have taken their own lives in the past. When a suicide of this kind takes place in a Weihaiwei village it is believed that another suicide will inevitably follow within an extreme limit of two years. Neither public opinion nor the law of the land stigmatises suicide as a crime: persons who attempt and fail to kill themselves are never prosecuted. The attitude of the more philosophically-minded of the Chinese towards the subject of suicide in general is perhaps somewhat similar to that of the Stoic Epictetus, who on the one hand forbids it and on the other hand calls attention to the fact that the door out of life is always open to those who feel that they have good reason to use it. As for self-destruction involving dishonour in the eyes of society, this is so far from being the case in China that in certain circumstances the exact opposite is the result. Posthumous honours have been showered upon suicides by imperial edict, monuments have been erected to their memory, they have been canonised and their tablets honoured with official worship in the public temples, and they have bequeathed to their relatives and descendants a glory that shines undimmed for many successive generations.