《乌合之众·第一编·群体的心理·群体的观念、推理与想象力》第9节
Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images. It is only images that terrify or attract them and become motives of action. For this reason theatrical representations, in which the image is shown in its most clearly visible shape, always have an enormous influence on crowds. Bread and spectacular shows constituted for the plebeians of ancient Rome the ideal of happiness, and they asked for nothing more. Throughout the successive ages this ideal has scarcely varied. Nothing has a greater effect on the imagination of crowds of every category than theatrical representations. The entire audience experiences at the same time the same emotions, and if these emotions are not at once transformed into acts, it is because the most unconscious spectator cannot ignore that he is the victim of illusions, and that he has laughed or wept over imaginary adventures. Sometimes, however, the sentiments suggested by the images are so strong that they tend, like habitual suggestions, to transform themselves into acts. The story has often been told of the manager of a popular theatre who, in consequence of his only playing sombre dramas, was obliged to have the actor who took the part of the traitor protected on his leaving the theatre, to defend him against the violence of the spectators, indignant at the crimes, imaginary though they were, which the traitor had committed. We have here, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable indications of the mental state of crowds, and especially of the facility with which they are suggestioned. The unreal has almost as much influence on them as the real. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段提出了一个他自认为极具普遍性的论断：群体只能以形象来思维，因而也只会被形象所打动。这个论证的展开方式非常典型——先给出一个抽象法则，然后立刻用一个具体而戏剧化的轶事来印证它。他先从剧院的例子切入，因为在剧院里，形象是以最鲜明可见的方式呈现的。全体观众在同一时刻体验同样的情感，勒庞认为这就是群体心理的绝佳样本。但他注意到一个有趣的张力：观众明明知…