An unsystematic editorial program made the first volume stand in for the whole project

Evidence

Instead of successfully making a virtue of necessity, the editors’ refusal to sketch out a systematic maximal programmeproviding a background against which the volumes which had actually been published might appear as fragmentsactually made it more difficult to appreciate the works properly. This meant that the first volume tended more and more to become a substitute for the whole, dealing as it did with the most elaborate section of the project, and being the longest in the series, with wide-ranging introductory and concluding passages and a foreword by Horkheimer that staked large claims. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1757