《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体意见与信念的间接因素》第8节
The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that national progress is the consequence of the improvement of institutions and governments, and that social changes can be effected by decrees-- this idea, I say, is still generally accepted. It was the starting-point of the French Revolution, and the social theories of the present day are based upon it. The most continuous experience has been unsuccessful in shaking this grave delusion. Philosophers and historians have endeavoured in vain to prove its absurdity, but yet they have had no difficulty in demonstrating that institutions are the outcome of ideas, sentiments, and customs, and that ideas, sentiments, and customs are not to be recast by recasting legislative codes. A nation does not choose its institutions at will any more than it chooses the colour of its hair or its eyes. Institutions and governments are the product of the race. They are not the creators of an epoch, but are created by it. Peoples are not governed in accordance with their caprices of the moment, but as their character determines that they shall be governed. Centuries are required to form a political system and centuries needed to change it. Institutions have no intrinsic virtue: in themselves they are neither good nor bad. Those which are good at a given moment for a given people may be harmful in the extreme for another nation.
注释摘要
在此段中，勒庞集中攻击的是一个在他看来根深蒂固的幻象：以为社会可以通过制定宪法、改革政府、颁布法令来实现根本进步。这套信念被他追溯到法国大革命——大革命正是试图用立法和制度推倒一切旧秩序，以理性的蓝图重建社会。他把这种信念视为一种需要加以破除的迷思，而全书的任务之一，就是要说明这种迷思为何在群体心中长盛不衰。 勒庞的论证结构是一个否定式的推进。他首先指出，…