Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

KAVANGA : GATES
OF THE MORNING 389
a matter of fearful fact, here we have something very
serious. What is it ? The negro answer is that the so-
called sixth sense is only the lightning collapse of all the
senses into a sudden instinctive unit : not 5 + 1 = 6, but
5 = 1. This away at the dawn of cognition is their
definition of what we call instinct. Instinct, that is to
say, is the whole five senses collapsed into that unit of
sensation which may be represented by the formula : 5 = 1.
Now, it is this unity of savage soul that accounts for the
marvels of the bush life. He can smell his way. He is
all alacrity. His wisdom is not syllogistic but unconscious.
Those five gateways of the soul we call ** senses" are
wide open to Nature, and the " marconigrams " stream in
as divergent Five to collapse at once into convergent One.
Ask him to argue the point and he would smile : arguing
is the five-senses side of the subject ; at the centralised
one-sensorium he only knows. This, too, is the reason of
the sanctity of all dear " grandmother " philosophy among
the sons of men, for " Granny " does not argue the point
a la J. S. Mill. She lets Mill patrol the five gateways
outside, knowing that they all radiate in on her central
point of instinct :
"I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell."
Mill would have voted for Dr. Fell and proved him
lovable :
'* Granny kens muckle mair." And thus the last
is first, mere logic beaten by instinct ; for in God Most
High have we not the apotheosis of instinct? The
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