《乌合之众·第二编·群体的意见与信念·群体信念与意见的变异限度》第1节
A close parallel exists between the anatomical and psychological characteristics of living beings. In these anatomical characteristics certain invariable, or slightly variable, elements are met with, to change which the lapse is necessary of geological ages. Side by side with these fixed, indestructible features are to be found others extremely changeable, which the art of the breeder or horticulturist may easily modify, and at times to such an extent as to conceal the fundamental characteristics from an observer at all inattentive. The same phenomenon is observed in the case of moral characteristics. Alongside the unalterable psychological elements of a race, mobile and changeable elements are to be encountered. For this reason, in studying the beliefs and opinions of a people, the presence is always detected of a fixed groundwork on which are engrafted opinions as changing as the surface sand on a rock. The opinions and beliefs of crowds may be divided, then, into two very distinct classes. On the one hand we have great permanent beliefs, which endure for several centuries, and on which an entire civilisation may rest. Such, for instance, in the past were feudalism, Christianity, and Protestantism; and such, in our own time, are the nationalist principle and contemporary democratic and social ideas. In the second place, there are the transitory, changing opinions, the outcome, as a rule, of general conceptions, of which every age sees the birth and disappearance; examples in point are the theories which mould literature and the arts--those, for instance, which produced romanticism, naturalism, mysticism, &c. Opinions of this order are as superficial, as a rule, as fashion, and as changeable. They may be compared to the ripples which ceaselessly arise and vanish on the surface of a deep lake.
注释摘要
勒庞这段论述的核心，是用生物解剖学来为群体心理建立一套分类模型。他观察到，生物体既存在极为稳固、几乎不可变更的解剖特征，也存在牧人或园艺者可以轻易改造的可变特征；同样，民族的心理生活中，也有一个“不可变更”的心理基底，上面嫁接着表层、易变的意见。据此，他把群体的信念与意见截然分成两类：一类是延续数百年、支撑整个文明的“伟大持久信念”，如过去的封建制、基督教…