Let us see, now, what the dangers are. They have their center in the fact that consciousness of possessing power tends to divert the possessor’s attention from main issues to subordinate ones. The experience of being a cause, and of being able to bring things to pass, is enjoyable; therefore it seeks to prolong itself as though it were a good _per se_, whereas it is really good only when its consequences, on the whole, are wholesome. Thus the stake that one properly has in one’s selfhood becomes exaggerated and distorted. This produces in the victim at one time undue respect for precedents that he himself has created, at other times undue responsiveness to the seductions of the moment. The resulting pseudo-virtue of consistency, and the obverse pseudo-virtue of “adaptability” or “practicality” alike put one’s present self into the foreground instead of the issues that the self should be meeting. Instead of “one’s self” in this description, we may read, upon occasion, “one’s party,” “one’s church,” “one’s set,” or “one’s institution”; the truth of the description is unaffected. In short, consciousness of power tends to beget self-will in individuals and in groups. Not only does this self-will tend to dislocate issues _ab initio_; it also cumulatively surrounds itself with products of its own that wall it off from surrounding realities. One now uses “vested interests” as the measure of other interests; one measures one’s efficiency by the ratio between planned result and actual result, not realizing that the lack of a better plan, a wider horizon, spells inefficiency; one consorts with persons of like mind, whether partners or beneficiaries, erects their joint opinion into an orthodoxy, and becomes callous towards outsiders and towards unaccustomed ideas; at last the fate that was implicit in the situation from the beginning fulfils its measure--incapacity to reconstruct from within, and ignoble terror before the danger of explosion from without. It is scarcely needful to dwell upon the less subtle consequences of possessing power, such as exaggeration of the importance of security for oneself and one’s possessions; secretiveness; the temptation to employ illegitimate means and to justify them by the importance of the ends in view, and the danger, at last, of conscienceless corruption.