《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14节
We have already shown that crowds are not to be influenced by reasoning, and can only comprehend rough-and-ready associations of ideas. The orators who know how to make an impression upon them always appeal in consequence to their sentiments and never to their reason. The laws of logic have no action on crowds.[16] To bring home conviction to crowds it is necessary first of all to thoroughly comprehend the sentiments by which they are animated, to pretend to share these sentiments, then to endeavour to modify them by calling up, by means of rudimentary associations, certain eminently suggestive notions, to be capable, if need be, of going back to the point of view from which a start was made, and, above all, to divine from instant to instant the sentiments to which one's discourse is giving birth. This necessity of ceaselessly varying one's language in accordance with the effect produced at the moment of speaking deprives from the outset a prepared and studied harangue of all efficaciousness. In such a speech the orator follows his own line of thought, not that of his hearers, and from this fact alone his influence is annihilated. It is not even necessary to descend so low as primitive beings to obtain an insight into the utter powerlessness of reasoning when it has to fight against sentiment. Let us merely call to mind how tenacious, for centuries long, have been religious superstitions in contradiction with the simplest logic. For nearly two thousand years the most luminous geniuses have bowed before their laws, and modern times have to be reached for their veracity to be merely contested. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance possessed many enlightened men, but not a single man who attained by reasoning to an appreciation of the childish side of his superstitions, or who promulgated even a slight doubt as to the misdeeds of the devil or the necessity of burning sorcerers.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一节要论证的是一个彻底得近乎绝望的命题：群体的心智根本不接受逻辑推理的支配。在他看来，群体只能处理最简单粗暴的观念联想，也就是把两件其实不相关的事硬套在一起的那种“粗糙联想”。因此，任何能真正作用于群体的演说家，从来不诉诸理性，而只诉诸情感。他给这种演说术开了一份冷酷的操作清单：先彻底摸清楚群体现正涌动着什么情绪，然后假装自己也分享这些情绪；接着再…