《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13节
The evolution which has been effected in this direction in the last twenty-five years is striking. During the preceding period, comparatively near us though it is, opinions still had a certain general trend; they had their origin in the acceptance of some fundamental belief. By the mere fact that an individual was a monarchist he possessed inevitably certain clearly defined ideas in history as well as in science, while by the mere fact that he was a republican, his ideas were quite contrary. A monarchist was well aware that men are not descended from monkeys, and a republican was not less well aware that such is in truth their descent. It was the duty of the monarchist to speak with horror, and of the republican to speak with veneration, of the great Revolution. There were certain names, such as those of Robespierre and Marat, that had to be uttered with an air of religious devotion, and other names, such as those of Caesar, Augustus, or Napoleon, that ought never to be mentioned unaccompanied by a torrent of invective. Even in the French Sorbonne this ingenuous fashion of conceiving history was general.[23] [23] There are pages in the books of the French official professors of history that are very curious from this point of view. They prove too how little the critical spirit is developed by the system of university education in vogue in France. I cite as an example the following extracts from the "French Revolution" of M. Rambaud, professor of history at the Sorbonne:
注释摘要
勒庞在这段文字里试图描绘一种十九世纪末特有的精神现象：固定信念退场之后，人们的意见不再是从某种根本信仰中自然生长出来的系统，而变成了碎片化的、随阵营贴标签的产物。他的论证主要基于对法国政治文化的观察。他指出，仅仅在二十五年前，也就是大约第二帝国末期到第三共和国初期，一个人只要认同君主制，他就几乎必然持有一整套关于历史、科学乃至人类起源的确定看法；同样，一个…