What does "their own properties" refer to in the context?

Question

Things come into being, exist and cease to exist, not each independent of all other things, but each in its relationship with other things. The very nature of a thing is modified and transformed by its relationships with other things. When things enter into such relationships that they become parts of a whole, the whole cannot be regarded as nothing more than the sum total of the parts. True, the whole is nothing apart from and independent of its parts. But the mutual relations which the parts enter into in constituting the whole modify their own properties, so that while it may be said that the whole is determined by the parts it may equally be said that the parts are determined by the whole.

[Materialism and the Dialectical Method - Maurice Cornforth]

What does "their own properties" refer to? "the mutual relations" or "the parts"?

I think the author implied "the parts". But I am not so sure. Could you help me please!?

Answer 1

The context makes it relatively clear that there is a juxtaposition of "whole" and "parts", so "their" refers to "parts" and not to "relations". It must be admitted that the grammar is unclear here without reference to the context.