it represents money as the result of the alienation of all commodities in contra-distinction to the medium of circulation as the embodiment of commodities in their always alienable form. Coin reserves and hoards are money only as non-circulating mediums and are non-circulating mediums only because they do not circulate. In the capacity in which we consider money now, it circulates or enters circulation, but does not perform the function of a circulating medium. As a medium of circulation money is always a means of purchase, now it does not act in that capacity.
As soon as money develops through the process of hoarding into the embodiment of abstract social wealth and the tangible representative of material wealth, it assumes in that capacity special functions within the process of circulation. If money circulates merely as a medium of circulation and therefore as a means of purchase, it is understood that commodity and money confront each other at the same time, i. e., that the same value is present in a double form: at one pole, as a commodity in the hands of the seller; at the other pole as money