 Of the three alternatives: (1) points to the unity of a thing conceived as a whole; and (2) and (3) point to the multiplicity looking at the things as loose atoms, i.e., composite atoms. Not one of the three possibilities is, on Yogācāra’s account, admissible as the object of cognition however. The first is inadmissible because nowhere an external object is grasped as a unity, whole, one apart from its parts ([ĀlamPV] Tshad ma ce 86b). The second is inadmissible because when we see things we find that the atoms are not perceived individually as one by one ([Viṃ] 13, Sems tsam shi 3b). The third alternative is also rejected because the atoms in this case cannot be proved to exist as an indivisible ([Viṃ] 14, Sems tsam shi 3b).