"When the Eleatic School denied the possibility of motion, Diogenes, as everybody knows, stepped forth as an opponent. He stepped forth literally, for he said not a word, but merely walked several times back and forth, thinking that thereby he had sufficiently refuted those philosophers. Inasmuch as for a long time I have been engaged, at least occasionally, with the problem whether a repetition is possible and what significance it has, whether a thing gains or loses by being repeated, it suddenly occurred to me, "Thou canst take a trip to Berlin, where thou hast been before, and convince thyself now whether a repetition is possible and what significance it may have." At home I had almost been brought to a standstill by the problem. Say what one will, it is sure to play a very important role in modem philosophy; for repetition is a decisive expression for what "recollection" was for the Greeks. Just as they taught that all knowledge is a recollection, so will modem philosophy teach that the whole of life is a repetition. The only modem philosopher who had an inkling of this was Leibnitz ."