The whole is the environment of the part

Qualities do not inhere in the thing, qualities result from the interaction of the thing with its environment. 

"According to the left hemisphere, understanding is built up from the parts; one starts from one certainty, places another next to it, and advances as if building a wall, from the bottom up. It conceives there is objective evidence of truth for a part outside the context of the whole it goes to constitute. According to the right hemisphere, understanding is derived from the whole, since it is only in the light of the whole that one can truly understand the nature of the parts. " (The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist, 2009; page 142). 

The whole is the environment of the part. It is in the contextual relationship of the parts with each other as a whole that their qualities show up and work to ratify that whole.