The call for the upcoming Manchester Phonology Meeting voices a disquietude for the health of phonology arising out of a nagging concern that cumulativity should play a larger role in our conception of the science of language, and a sense that if there is indeed a rationality lurking behind the succession of phonological theories, it is not a rationality that we fully understand. I will suggest, first, that method is as important as theory in the life of a discipline, and that a sense of this has driven opposition movements in phonology for several decades; and second, that an understanding of this point was both central to American structuralism and a reason for the continued misunderstanding of Zellig Harris's conception of linguistics. I will end by suggesting reasons to believe that a restoration of balance between theory and method will bring with it a salutary change in our understanding of cumulativity in phonology.