Not the wood nor the stone — the soulless within does the moving
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Asclepius — Πῶς τοῦτο λέγεις, ὦ τρισμέγιστε; τὰ οὖν ξύλα καὶ τοὺς λίθους καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα ἄψυχα οὐ σώματά ἐστι τὰ κινοῦντα;
Hermes — Οὐδαμῶς, ὦ ᾿Ασκληπιέ· τὸ γὰρ ἔνδον τοῦ σώματος τοῦ κινοῦντος τὸ ἄψυχον, οὐ σῶμα ἐκεῖνό ἐστι τὸ ἀμφότερα κινοῦν, καὶ τὸ τοῦ βαστάζοντος καὶ τὸ τοῦ βασταζομένου; διόπερ ἄψυχον οὐκ ἄψυχον κινήσει· ὁρᾷς οὖν καταβαρουμένην τὴν ψυχήν, ὅταν μόνη δύο σώματα φέρῃ. καὶ ὅτι μὲν ἔν τινι κινεῖται τὰ κινούμενα καὶ ὑπό τινος, δῆλον.
How do you mean this, O Thrice-greatest? The woods, then, and the stones and all the other soulless things — are these not the bodies that do the moving? — By no means, O Asclepius. For the thing within the body, the thing that moves the soulless load — that is no body; it is what moves both, both that of the carrier and that of the carried. Wherefore a soulless thing will not move a soulless thing. You can see the soul weighed down, then, whenever alone it carries two bodies. And this much is clear: that the things that are moved are moved in something, and by something.
Asclepius pushes back: surely the woods, the stones, and all soulless things are the very bodies that move other things? Hermes answers flatly, 'By no means.' What moves the soulless load is not the body but the thing within the moving body — itself no body — and that inner power moves both the carrier and the thing carried. A soulless thing will not move a soulless thing. You can see the soul labouring, weighed down, when alone it carries two bodies. So much is clear: moved things are moved in something, and by something.
Asclepius raises the obvious objection: we watch wood and stone shift and shove other things every day — surely these soulless bodies are movers. Hermes refuses the appearance without hesitation ('By no means'). What does the moving is never the body but 'the thing within the body (τὸ ἔνδον τοῦ σώματος)' — and that, he insists, is 'no body (οὐ σῶμα).' The interlinear holds ἔμψυχον/ἄψυχον and σῶμα/οὐ σῶμα in view so the reader can watch the argument refuse to let a lifeless mass be its own cause: 'a soulless thing will not move a soulless thing (ἄψυχον οὐκ ἄψυχον κινήσει).'
The proof offered is homely and shrewd: watch a soul 'weighed down (καταβαρουμένην)' when it carries two bodies at once. The labour you can feel is the incorporeal at work, straining under a double load — the very thing a lever or a stone never feels. The dialogue then banks its gain in a plain formula that the whole treatise has been assembling: moved things are moved 'in something and by something (ἔν τινι… καὶ ὑπό τινος)' — the two questions place and cause, τόπος and the mover, that CH II opened with. It is the Hermetic re-reading of Aristotle's unmoved mover, pushed inward: the source of all motion is not out among the bodies but within them, and it is not itself a body at all.
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