《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体的领袖及其说服手段》第16节
The prestige of which I have just spoken is exercised by persons; side by side with it may be placed that exercised by opinions, literary and artistic works, &c. Prestige of the latter kind is most often merely the result of accumulated repetitions. History, literary and artistic history especially, being nothing more than the repetition of identical judgments, which nobody endeavours to verify, every one ends by repeating what he learnt at school, till there come to be names and things which nobody would venture to meddle with. For a modern reader the perusal of Homer results incontestably in immense boredom; but who would venture to say so? The Parthenon, in its present state, is a wretched ruin, utterly destitute of interest, but it is endowed with such prestige that it does not appear to us as it really is, but with all its accompaniment of historic memories. The special characteristic of prestige is to prevent us seeing things as they are and to entirely paralyse our judgment. Crowds always, and individuals as a rule, stand in need of ready-made opinions on all subjects. The popularity of these opinions is independent of the measure of truth or error they contain, and is solely regulated by their prestige.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段文字中，把此前讨论的"个人的名望"扩大到"作品与观念的名望"上。他要证明的是一个非常极端的命题：文学经典、艺术杰作之所以被尊崇，往往不是因为我们真正感受了它们，而是因为一代代人不断重复"它们伟大"的说法，以至于最后无人敢质疑。他用两个在当时足以震惊读者的例子展开论证：对现代读者而言，读荷马史诗其实无聊透顶；帕特农神庙在今天不过是一堆破败废墟，根…