"As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains"

Nicolas Malebranche draws a parallel between the nourishment of the body and the sustenance of the mind. He begins with the familiar, material reality: our bodies depend on the earth, drawing physical sustenance from the fruits it yields. Just as life would cease without this tangible food, there is an analogous requirement within the realm of the intellect. The mind, like the body, needs its own nourishment, but this nourishment is not to be found in earthly fruit. Instead, it is found in “the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains.” For Malebranche, ultimate truth and understanding originate not from the mutable, changeable things of the physical world, but from an immutable divine source: the Word.

The divine Word can be understood as the eternal Logos, the reason and wisdom of God. To say that our minds “feed on” what the divine Word “contains” is to suggest that the human intellect achieves its fulfillment not in contingent, shifting experiences, but in accessing timeless, universal truths. These truths are unchanging, and thus “immutable.” They are “intelligible,” meaning the mind is naturally oriented toward comprehending them. Malebranche’s allusion here emphasizes that genuine intellectual satisfaction and proper mental nourishment are only possible when the mind contemplates and partakes of those divine realities which transcend the fleeting nature of the empirical world.

The comparison implies a deep unity in the experience of being human: just as the body cannot live without its yearly harvests, neither can the mind thrive without encountering eternal realities. For Malebranche, all true knowledge is, in a sense, participation in God’s rationality. The divine Word, present to the mind, functions as the ground of all intelligibility. The human pursuit of wisdom is, then, a spiritual hunger, satisfied in contemplation of the truths that find their origin and unending source in God.