Where exactly does Heidegger's Way clearly begin to point to Being and Time? (Hereafter cited as BT.) There is something abrupt and arbitrary about any beginning, and a great beginning involves an especially violent burst of creativity. In retrospect, there is a tendency to dispute its intrusion and heal the breach in history by pointing to the precedents latent in the initial situation of departure. Anticipating this tendency, the historian wishing to recount its story must himself arbitrarily name his beginning and justify it as a beginning within and against the surge of precedents that then follow and, for the first time, become identifiable as precedents.