On the particulate principle of self-diversifying systems

Several natural systems, traditionally treated as being independent, now appear to be based on common principles. These systems include chemical interaction, biological inheritance, and human language. All represent systems of hierarchically organized levels, based on dynamically stable, particulate units; all exhibit change by a process of variation and selection based on these units; and, when particulate units form on the basis of intersecting dimensions, the properties of the particles conform to a periodic law. The several particulate systems derive their common properties by common inheritance from what will be called the particulate principle of self-diversifying systems, which pre-dates all of them, and which holds that when systems form structures having an infinite range of properties, such systems must be based on particles, rather than on blending constituents, because blending constituents would form combinations whose properties lie between, rather than outside, the properties of the original constituents.