 One might instead reject GK3 on the grounds that it runs afoul of “Hume’s Dictum”, according to which there can be no necessary connections among distinct existences. There is some controversy about how best to understand Hume’s Dictum and, in particular, whether it prohibits necessary connections even between overlapping items (which typically are thought not to be “distinct” in the relevant sense). But assuming that it does, then it will rule out any principle of composition according to which simples in certain arrangements cannot fail to compose something—for this would be to impose a necessary connection between simples being in that arrangement and the existence of a (numerically distinct) whole that they compose. And if we cannot in general expect theories of composition to be necessary if true, we should not expect nihilism to be necessary if  true.[75]