《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的情感与道德》第19节
Here, once more, were we able to embark on more extensive explanations, we should show the preponderating influence of racial considerations. A play which provokes the enthusiasm of the crowd in one country has sometimes no success in another, or has only a partial and conventional success, because it does not put in operation influences capable of working on an altered public. I need not add that the tendency to exaggeration in crowds is only present in the case of sentiments and not at all in the matter of intelligence. I have already shown that, by the mere fact that an individual forms part of a crowd, his intellectual standard is immediately and considerably lowered. A learned magistrate, M. Tarde, has also verified this fact in his researches on the crimes of crowds. It is only, then, with respect to sentiment that crowds can rise to a very high or, on the contrary, descend to a very low level. Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors. This is always the case with beliefs induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by reasoning. Every one is aware of the intolerance that accompanies religious beliefs, and of the despotic empire they exercise on men's minds.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里处理的是一个他自认为显而易见的问题：情感上的极端化是群体的普遍特征，但理智上的极端化并非如此。他用的例子很有意思，是戏剧。一出在一国引起狂热追捧的戏，到了另一国可能颗粒无收。勒庞对此的解释不是文化、时代或审美趣味的差异，而是种族。他说，这是因为戏剧无法触动那个“已经改变了的公众”，而这公众的根本差异在于种族构成。这里我们看得很清楚，勒庞在18…