《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的观念、推理与想象力》第3节
This phenomenon is not peculiar to crowds. It is to be observed in many isolated individuals, not only among primitive beings, but in the case of all those--the fervent sectaries of a religious faith, for instance--who by one side or another of their intelligence are akin to primitive beings. I have observed its presence to a curious extent in the case of educated Hindoos brought up at our European universities and having taken their degree. A number of Western ideas had been superposed on their unchangeable and fundamental hereditary or social ideas. According to the chances of the moment, the one or the other set of ideas showed themselves each with their special accompaniment of acts or utterances, the same individual presenting in this way the most flagrant contradictions. These contradictions are more apparent than real, for it is only hereditary ideas that have sufficient influence over the isolated individual to become motives of conduct. It is only when, as the result of the intermingling of different races, a man is placed between different hereditary tendencies that his acts from one moment to another may be really entirely contradictory. It would be useless to insist here on these phenomena, although their psychological importance is capital. I am of opinion that at least ten years of travel and observation would be necessary to arrive at a comprehension of them.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里试图把他对群体心理的观察推广到个体身上。他的核心论证是：同一个人的头脑中可以同时容纳相互矛盾的两套观念，而这个人却完全意识不到矛盾的存在，这种现象不仅见于群体，也见于某些个体，尤其是那些智力上与原始人相近的人。他举的例子是受过欧洲大学教育、拿到学位的印度教徒，说这些人身上叠加了西方观念与不可改变的世袭或社会观念，同一个体在不同时刻会依照不同观…