In this way, as it seems to me. Besides keeping down the ghost (or corpse) with clods and stones, it was usual in many cases to adopt other still stronger persuasives and dissuasives in the same direction. Sometimes the persuasives were of the gentlest type; for example, the dead man was often politely requested and adjured to remain quiet in the grave and to give no trouble. But sometimes they were less bland; the corpse was often pelted with sticks, stones, and hot coals, in order to show him that his visits at home would not in future be appreciated. The ordinary stake and mutilation treatment goes, it is clear, upon the same principle; if the man has no feet or legs of his own, he cannot very well walk back again. But further developments of the like crude idea are to cut off the head, to tear out the heart, to hack the body in pieces, to pour boiling water and vinegar over the dangerous place where the corpse lies buried. Now burning, I take it, belonged originally to the same category of strong measures against refractory ghosts or corpses; and this is the more probable owing to the fact that it is mentioned by Mr. Frazer among the remedies recommended for use in the extreme case of vampires. Its original object was, no doubt, to prevent the corpse from returning in any way to the homes of the living. Once any people adopted burning as a regular custom, however, the chances are that, _cœteris paribus_, it would continue and spread. For the practice of cremation is so much more wholesome and sanitary than the practice of burial that it would give a double advantage in the struggle for existence to any race that adopted it, in peace and in war. Hence it is quite natural that when at a certain grade of culture certain races happened to light upon it {062}in this superstitious way, those races would be likely to thrive and to take the lead in culture as long as no adverse circumstances counteracted the advantage.