The main difficulty in the analysis of money is overcome as soon as the evolution of money from commodity is understood. This point once granted, it only remains to comprehend clearly the particular forms of money, which is to some extent made difficult by the fact that all bourgeois relations, being gilt or silver plated, have the appearance of money relations, and money, therefore, seems to possess an endless variety of forms, which have nothing in common with it. In the following investigation only those forms of money are treated of which directly grow out of the exchange of commodities; the forms which belong to a higher stage of production, as e. g., credit money will not be discussed here. For the sake of simplicity gold is assumed throughout as the money commodity. 1. THE MEASURE OF VALUE. The first process of circulation constitutes, so to say, the theoretical preparatory process to actual circulation. To begin with, commodities which are use-values by nature, acquire a form in which they _appear_ in idea to each other as exchange values, as definite quantities of incorporated _universal_ labor-time. The first necessary step in this process is, as we have seen, the setting apart by the commodities of a specific commodity, say _gold_, as the direct incarnation of universal labor-time, or the universal equivalent. Let us go back for a moment to the form in which commodities turn gold into money. 1 ton of iron = 2 ounces of gold 1 quarter of wheat = 1 ounce of gold 1 hundred weight of Mocca coffee = 1-1/4 ounce of gold 1 hundred weight of potash = 1/2 ounce of gold 1 ton of Brazil timber = 1-1/2 ounces of gold Y commodities = X ounces of gold