Lincoln, the stuck pig and mirror neurons

[Juan Marrero]

A very charming anecdote that says so much about the man is the story of Lincoln riding a horse on the lawyer circuit and noticing, on a rainy, cold day, a pig that had gotten stuck on the wayside. He knew that, if he stopped to pull the pig out of the ditch, he would be a muddy mess by the time he got to court. So he rode on. But the pig's plight kept eating at him. He turned his horse around and saved the pig (sadly for probably an equally grim end).

Lincoln had the remarkable self-knowledge to know that he had turned around as much for himself as for the pig. He knew that, if he did not effect the rescue, the matter would gnaw at him ad infinitum. So, he did not congratulate himself on his kindness, and simply recognized he had done the best for himself--and for the soon-to-be bacon.

One-hundred sixty years later or so, neurologists are studying "mirror neurons" contained in the cells of the frontal lobe. Some posit that a super-abundance of these makes people hyper-sensitive to the suffering of others; and, conversly, a deficit would result in the kind of person who could do nasty things to others without a second look. If this be the case, it speaks to the heroic efforts that Lincoln made to conduct a war that must have devastated him emotionally.