Book II opens — the dialogue on motion (mover and moved)
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Hermes — Πᾶν τὸ κινούμενον, ὦ Ἀσκληπιέ, οὐκ ἔν τινι κινεῖται καὶ ὑπό τινος;
Asclepius — Μάλιστα.
Hermes — Οὐκ ἀνάγκη δὲ μεῖζον εἶναι τὸ ἐν ᾧ κινεῖται ἢ τὸ κινούμενον;
Asclepius — Ἀνάγκη.
Hermes — Ἰσχυρότερον ἄρα τὸ κινοῦν τοῦ κινουμένου;
Asclepius — Ἰσχυρότερον γάρ.
Hermes — Ἐναντίαν δὲ ἔχειν φύσιν ἀνάγκη τὸ ἐν ᾧ κινεῖται τῇ τοῦ κινουμένου;
Asclepius — Καὶ πάνυ.
Everything that is moved, O Asclepius, is it not moved in something and by something? — Most certainly. — And is it not necessary that what it is moved in be greater than the moved? — Necessarily. — Then the mover is stronger than the moved? — Stronger indeed. — And must not that in which it is moved have a nature contrary to the moved? — Quite so.
The second treatise of the Corpus (CH II, 'To Asclepius, a general discourse') begins — a Socratic dialogue in which Hermes leads Asclepius by question and answer. It opens with physics that will climb to theology: everything moved is moved in something and by something; the place must be greater than the moved; the mover stronger than the moved, and of a contrary nature. The chain builds toward God as the incorporeal in whom all motion happens.
With the second treatise the Corpus changes register entirely. The Poimandres was vision and hymn; CH II is dialectic — a Socratic exchange in which Hermes leads Asclepius step by step, each answer conceded ('most certainly,' 'necessarily,' 'quite so') before the next question. It is the Hermetica's other voice: reasoned argument as a road to the same God the vision reached.
The reasoning is deliberately physical, almost Aristotelian: whatever moves, moves in a place and by a mover; the place is greater than the moved, the mover stronger, and of a contrary nature. The interlinear earns its keep here, because the whole passage is one Greek root turning over and over — κινούμενον, κινεῖται, κινοῦν, κινουμένου, 'moved, is moved, mover, of the moved' — a music English scatters into different words. Held under the eye, the argument's engine shows: everything is caught in motion within something greater, and the mind is being walked, link by link, toward what moves all and is itself unmoved.
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