《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的观念、推理与想象力》第2节
These fundamental ideas resemble the volume of the water of a stream slowly pursuing its course; the transitory ideas are like the small waves, for ever changing, which agitate its surface, and are more visible than the progress of the stream itself although without real importance. At the present day the great fundamental ideas which were the mainstay of our fathers are tottering more and more. They have lost all solidity, and at the same time the institutions resting upon them are severely shaken. Every day there are formed a great many of those transitory minor ideas of which I have just been speaking; but very few of them to all appearance seem endowed with vitality and destined to acquire a preponderating influence. Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. They present themselves then in the guise of images, and are only accessible to the masses under this form. These imagelike ideas are not connected by any logical bond of analogy or succession, and may take each other's place like the slides of a magic-lantern which the operator withdraws from the groove in which they were placed one above the other. This explains how it is that the most contradictory ideas may be seen to be simultaneously current in crowds. According to the chances of the moment, a crowd will come under the influence of one of the various ideas stored up in its understanding, and is capable, in consequence, of committing the most dissimilar acts. Its complete lack of the critical spirit does not allow of its perceiving these contradictions.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里区分了两种截然不同的观念：根本观念像溪流深处缓慢推进的水体，临时观念则像水面上不断变幻、引人注目却缺乏真实分量的小波浪。他要论证的是，十九世纪末支撑父辈生活的那些根本观念——宗教信仰、传统秩序之类——正在整个西欧摇摇欲坠，连带建立其上的制度也剧烈松动。与此同时，大量应时的、转瞬即逝的观念每天生灭，其中很少有什么能获得持久的支配力。这个判断本身…