Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1894
Schullern’s brief review evaluates Platter’s collected republication of writings from the preceding sixteen years. Its central claim concerns intellectual independence: Platter allows readers to trace changes in his convictions without embarrassment or retrospective concealment. Schullern treats this openness as a scholarly virtue, contrasting it pointedly with the reluctance of some representatives of science to acknowledge intellectual development.
Die bekannte, scharf zutage tretende Individualität des Verfassers macht es interessant und lehrreich, diesem Entwicklungsgange zu folgen.
English translation: The author's well-known, sharply emerging individuality makes it interesting and instructive to follow this course of development.
The review moves from this appraisal of Platter’s intellectual character to a selective account of the volume’s contemporary usefulness. Since most essays are already widely known, Schullern declines detailed discussion. He singles out “Der Wucher in der Bukowina” and “Agrarpolitisches aus Oesterreich” for their Austrian relevance. The accompanying note explains that the latter sharply criticizes agrarian bills introduced by the agriculture ministry in the previous year; its renewed topicality would depend on those proposals reaching parliamentary deliberation. The older essays “Das Recht auf Existenz” and “Die Pflichten des Besitzes” likewise remain stimulating, although changing external circumstances—and the views shaped by them—may have rendered some claims obsolete.
Schullern’s concluding assessment separates the value of an intervention from agreement with its conclusions:
Der Autor fordert oft und oft zur Polemik heraus, er ist aber immer ebenso muthig in der unumwundenen Wiedergabe seiner Ueberzeugung, als sachlich in ihrer Begründung, interessant und anregend, er verdient es daher auch vollauf, dass sich die Wissenschaft und die gesetzgeberische Thätigkeit auch über seine Anschauungen unterrichte.
English translation: The author again and again provokes polemic, but he is always as courageous in the unreserved rendering of his conviction as he is objective in its grounding, interesting and stimulating; he therefore also fully deserves that science and legislative activity should inform themselves about his views as well.
The recommendation rests on courage, substantive reasoning, and the capacity to provoke productive disagreement. Bringing essays previously scattered across journals, newspapers, and pamphlets into one volume makes those qualities more accessible to scholarship and legislative practice. The review thus endorses engagement with Platter’s evolving positions, without claiming that their republication removes their historical limitations.
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