They argue that if the combined constituents continue to exist and are unaltered, they are no more combined now than they were before, but are in the same condition; while if one has been destroyed, the constituents have not been combined on the contrary, one constituent is and the other is not, whereas combination demands uniformity of condition in them both; and on the same principle even if both the combining constituents have been destroyed as the result of their coalescence, they cannot be combined since they have no being at all.