《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的一般特征·心理统一律》第4节
Among the psychological characteristics of crowds there are some that they may present in common with isolated individuals, and others, on the contrary, which are absolutely peculiar to them and are only to be met with in collectivities. It is these special characteristics that we shall study, first of all, in order to show their importance. The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological crowd is the following: Whoever be the individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of individuals forming a crowd. The psychological crowd is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their reunion a new being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells singly.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里明确划定了心理群体的研究范围，他要区分哪些特征是个体与群体共有的，哪些则严格属于集体所有，而他的重点显然落在后者。他提出心理群体最突出的特质在于：无论组成者在身份、职业、性格、智力上是多么千差万别，一旦进入群体，他们就被赋予一种“集体心理”，使得他们的感受、思维和行动都与各自独处时截然不同。为了强化这个论点，他引入了一个生物学类比，把心理群体…