《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的情感与道德》第5节
When defining crowds, we said that one of their general characteristics was an excessive suggestibility, and we have shown to what an extent suggestions are contagious in every human agglomeration; a fact which explains the rapid turning of the sentiments of a crowd in a definite direction. However indifferent it may be supposed, a crowd, as a rule, is in a state of expectant attention, which renders suggestion easy. The first suggestion formulated which arises implants itself immediately by a process of contagion in the brains of all assembled, and the identical bent of the sentiments of the crowd is immediately an accomplished fact. As is the case with all persons under the influence of suggestion, the idea which has entered the brain tends to transform itself into an act. Whether the act is that of setting fire to a palace, or involves self-sacrifice, a crowd lends itself to it with equal facility. All will depend on the nature of the exciting cause, and no longer, as in the case of the isolated individual, on the relations existing between the act suggested and the sum total of the reasons which may be urged against its realisation. In consequence, a crowd perpetually hovering on the borderland of unconsciousness, readily yielding to all suggestions, having all the violence of feeling peculiar to beings who cannot appeal to the influence of reason, deprived of all critical faculty, cannot be otherwise than excessively credulous. The improbable does not exist for a crowd, and it is necessary to bear this circumstance well in mind to understand the facility with which are created and propagated the most improbable legends and stories.[3]
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段集中论证群体的另一个核心特征：极度的轻信与易受暗示性。他首先确认，他在前文为群体下定义时，已经指明"过度的易受暗示性"是群体的普遍特征之一，而暗示在一切人类聚集中都具有强大的传染力。这一传染机制，在勒庞看来，正是群体的情感能够迅速转向某个固定方向的根本原因。 勒庞的推理链条相当清晰。他假设，无论表面上显得多么漠不关心，群体通常处于一种"期待性注…