《乌合之众·第三编·不同群体的分类与描述·议会集会》第19节
This progressive restriction of liberties shows itself in every country in a special shape which Herbert Spencer has not pointed out; it is that the passing of these innumerable series of legislative measures, all of them in a general way of a restrictive order, conduces necessarily to augment the number, the power, and the influence of the functionaries charged with their application. These functionaries tend in this way to become the veritable masters of civilised countries. Their power is all the greater owing to the fact that, amidst the incessant transfer of authority, the administrative caste is alone in being untouched by these changes, is alone in possessing irresponsibility, impersonality, and perpetuity. There is no more oppressive despotism than that which presents itself under this triple form. This incessant creation of restrictive laws and regulations, surrounding the pettiest actions of existence with the most complicated formalities, inevitably has for its result the confining within narrower and narrower limits of the sphere in which the citizen may move freely. Victims of the delusion that equality and liberty are the better assured by the multiplication of laws, nations daily consent to put up with trammels increasingly burdensome. They do not accept this legislation with impunity. Accustomed to put up with every yoke, they soon end by desiring servitude, and lose all spontaneousness and energy. They are then no more than vain shadows, passive, unresisting and powerless automata.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一节里想论证的是一个环环相扣的链条：议会既然必然屈从于选举压力而不断通过各类开支法案与限制性法规，这些法规就必然需要一个庞大的官僚体系去执行；于是行政官员的数量、权力和影响力便持续膨胀，最终成为不受变动裹挟的“真正主人”。他以法国当时大量纯粹为了地方选票而投票通过的铁路支线拨款为例，证明这种膨胀不是理论推测，而是已经发生的财政支出事实。他的核心论点…