  The title of this article is partially taken from writings of A. Einstein.
  In the 1932 ICM at Z\"urich, when E. \vCech gave a seminar on higher homotopy
groups of a pointed space and proved they were abelian for n > 1. On these
grounds, H. Hopf and P.S. Aleksandrov persuaded \^Cech to withdraw his paper,
so that only a small paragraph appeared in the Proceedings. This article
reviews the eventual construction by the author and P.J. Higgins, of reasonably
nonabelian higher dimensional versions of the fundamental group, using
groupoids and many base points, and stimulated by long term work of J.H.C.
Whitehead on crossed modules.
