Hayagrīva: ...Frenchman, and he is known as a positivist. He felt that positivism reconciles the heart and the intellect. He felt that theology dealt solely with the heart or the sentiments and that philosophy dealt solely with the intellect, but positivism reconciled the two. He writes, "Positivism proves more efficient than theology yet at the same time terminates the disunion which has existed so long between the intellect and the heart. It is a fundamental doctrine of positivism, a doctrine of as great political as philosophical importance, that the heart preponderates over the intellect. When it is said that the intellect should be subordinate to the heart, what is meant is that the intellect should devote itself exclusively to the problems which the heart suggests, the ultimate object being to find proper satisfaction for our various wants," meaning material wants, as well as spiritual wants.
Prabhupāda: So we have got from Bhagavad-gītā that the gross understanding are the senses, though the still finer understanding is the mind, and then intellect, and then the soul. The soul is the original, basic principle of activities. So it becomes grosser, grosser, grosser, and when the soul acts on the platform of senses and body, these are gross activities. So our calculation is the gross activities of the body, then the subtle activities of the mind and still more subtle activities of the intellect, and then spiritual platform. So that is also expressed in another way: pratyakṣa, parokṣa, aparokṣa, adhokṣaja, aprākṛta. These are different stages of knowledge. Direct perception, pratyakṣa; then receiving knowledge from others, then..., pratyakṣa par..., aparokṣa, still further Vedic knowledge. Then adhokṣaja, beyond the experience of mind and senses. Then aprākṛta, transcendental, spiritual. These are the different stages of knowledge and different stages of understanding from gross to the subtler forms of life.
Hayagrīva: He says, "Even the laws of the solar system are very far from perfect. The increasing imperfection of the economy of nature becomes a powerful stimulus to all our faculties, whether moral, intellectual or practical. Here we find sufferings which can really be alleviated to a large extent by wise and well-sustained combination of efforts." Another way, in other words, man can improve on nature. "Those who look wisely into the future of society will feel that the conception of man becoming without fear or boast, the arbiter, within certain limits, of his own destiny, has in it something far more satisfying than the old belief in providence, which implied our remaining passive." So he felt that man's improvement on nature is better than a passive belief in God.
Prabhupāda: So he is..., he does not believe..., there is no belief in God is there? There is no question of? No. But our point of view is different: that God is the ultimate decider of everything. That is called daiva-netreṇa. He may be acting through different agents, but ultimate decision is given by Him. And He is sitting in everyone's heart. He is observing the activities of the individual soul as witness, giving permission. Without God's permission, nobody can act. So He is giving intelligence also, and He is the cause of forgetting. Two things are there, remembering and forgetting. Both these things are coming from God. If He keeps him in forgetfulness, then he cannot remember, and if He gives him the power to remember, he can remember for long, long past activities. So ultimately God is the final director. That is our conception. Man cannot remain independent. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). Everything is being done, impelled by the three material modes of nature, and the ultimate dictator is the Supersoul, or the Personality of Godhead in His localized aspect, situated everywhere in the heart of the living entity, or even within the atom He is there, and His is the supreme director.