《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体意见的直接因素》第13节
[15] The opinion of the crowd was formed in this case by those rough-and-ready associations of dissimilar things, the mechanism of which I have previously explained. The French national guard of that period, being composed of peaceable shopkeepers, utterly lacking in discipline and quite incapable of being taken seriously, whatever bore a similar name, evoked the same conception and was considered in consequence as harmless. The error of the crowd was shared at the time by its leaders, as happens so often in connection with opinions dealing with generalisations. In a speech made in the Chamber on the 31st of December, 1867, and quoted in a book by M. E. Ollivier that has appeared recently, a statesman who often followed the opinion of the crowd but was never in advance of it--I allude to M. Thiers--declared that Prussia only possessed a national guard analogous to that of France, and in consequence without importance, in addition to a regular army about equal to the French regular army; assertions about as accurate as the predictions of the same statesman as to the insignificant future reserved for railways. In enumerating the factors capable of making an impression on the minds of crowds all mention of reason might be dispensed with, were it not necessary to point out the negative value of its influence.
注释摘要
勒庞在这则注释里回到他反复强调的一个命题：群体的意见不是靠严密推理形成的，而是靠一种粗疏的观念联结，把表面相似的事物硬凑在一起。他要拿一个具体的、代价惨重的历史误判来说明这一点。 他举的是普法战争前法国舆论对普鲁士军事力量的低估。当时法国人脑子里有一个现成的形象——“国民自卫军”，那是由店铺老板、小市民拼凑起来的队伍，既无纪律也毫无战斗力，整个社会都拿它不…