1. Wholeness is the property of a system in which every part is so related to every other part that a change in a particular part or element causes a change in all the other parts and in the total system. The system is then said to behave as a whole or coherently and shows new structural and functional features, non-existent in its components. These new features result from the interaction of the system components, from their organization and functioning within the system.
2. A fundamental distinction is made between such structures and aggregates, the former being wholes, the latter composites formed of elements that are independent of the complexes into which they enter. To insist on this distinction is not to deny that structures have elements, but the elements of a structure are subordinated to laws, and it is in terms of these laws that the structure as a whole or system is defined. Moreover, the laws governing the structure's composition are not reducible to cumulative one-by-one association of its elements; they confer on the whole as such over-all properties distinct from the properties of its elements.
3. Wholeness is the most striking feature of the systems at all levels of organization of living matter. It arises and develops as a result of structural differentiation and functional specialization within the given system.
4. ‘One is All, and by it All, and for it All, and if it does not contain All, then All is Nothing’. (On an alchemical papyrus from the 3rd-Century AD).