It must not surprise us, therefore, that the varying experiences of war have everywhere acted as a strong incentive on the commemorative impulse. In this case, however, we have to count with a factor of still greater importance in the directly utilitarian advantage which military nations derive from historical art. Through recounting or representing the exploits of earlier generations, the descendants acquire that healthy feeling of pride which is the most important factor of success in all brutal forms of the struggle for life. So it has come about that historic art has everywhere reached its highest state of development amongst nations who have had to hold their own _vi et armis_ against neighbouring tribes, or in the midst of which antagonistic families have fought for supremacy. The more the social institutions have been influenced by the customs of war, the more important is usually the part which commemoration plays in public life. It is highly prominent in semi-feudal Polynesia,[252] where domestic warfare was at all times of regular occurrence; it has developed to some extent in warlike Fiji,[253] notwithstanding the Melanesian indifference for the past; and it has obtained the position of a state function in military despotisms, such as the barbaric kingdoms of Central and South America and Western Africa.[254] In isolated tribes, on the other hand, whose whole struggle has been one against nature, historical art is generally to be found at a very low ebb. That bygone events have been preserved in history and art chiefly for the sake of their effect in enhancing the national pride can also be concluded from the way in which humiliating incidents are treated. There are, it is true, a few isolated and unhappy tribes which keep up some dim traditions of their inglorious past.[255] Generally, however, defeats are totally ignored in the earliest chronicles. If, however, an unsuccessful battle should have provoked artistic manifestations, these aim at masking the humiliation.[256] The ancient history of Greece affords the most curious examples of myths and inventions by means of which the popular imagination contrived to conceal disagreeable truths. The fate of Phrynichos, who was fined for having revived the memory of the defeat at Miletus, shows that Greece, even at a much later period, preserved the same primitive ideas as to the _raison d’être_ of historic art. It is needless to point out to how great an extent similar conceptions still prevail amongst all warlike nations, civilised and barbarous alike.