《乌合之众·第三编·不同群体的分类与描述·议会集会》第22节
At this stage a new civilisation, with its institutions, its beliefs, and its arts, may be born. In pursuit of its ideal, the race will acquire in succession the qualities necessary to give it splendour, vigour, and grandeur. At times no doubt it will still be a crowd, but henceforth, beneath the mobile and changing characteristics of crowds, is found a solid substratum, the genius of the race which confines within narrow limits the transformations of a nation and overrules the play of chance. After having exerted its creative action, time begins that work of destruction from which neither gods nor men escape. Having reached a certain level of strength and complexity a civilisation ceases to grow, and having ceased to grow it is condemned to a speedy decline. The hour of its old age has struck. This inevitable hour is always marked by the weakening of the ideal that was the mainstay of the race. In proportion as this ideal pales all the religious, political, and social structures inspired by it begin to be shaken. With the progressive perishing of its ideal the race loses more and more the qualities that lent it its cohesion, its unity, and its strength. The personality and intelligence of the individual may increase, but at the same time this collective egoism of the race is replaced by an excessive development of the egoism of the individual, accompanied by a weakening of character and a lessening of the capacity for action. What constituted a people, a unity, a whole, becomes in the end an agglomeration of individualities lacking cohesion, and artificially held together for a time by its traditions and institutions. It is at this stage that men, divided by their interests and aspirations, and incapable any longer of self-government, require directing in their pettiest acts, and that the State exerts an absorbing influence.
注释摘要
勒庞在这一段里勾勒的是一个完整的文明兴衰循环模型，其核心驱动力是“理想”。他的论证逻辑很清晰：当一个混杂的人群通过长期共同生活、通婚和环境磨合，慢慢形成了共同的性格与情感，这时候就不再是一群随机聚合的个体，而变成了一个“种族”。种族之所以能脱离蛮荒状态走向文明，关键在于他掌握了某种具有凝聚力的理想——勒庞明确说，这个理想的内容是什么并不重要，罗马的荣耀、雅…