Kenneth Boulding, Friend and Economics Professor, served with the League of Nations and the Committee for Economic Development. At the University of Michigan he was the full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution and has been closely associated with peace activities.

Contrasting the richness of evolution which builds up and organizes life with the forces of entropy which lead to disorganization, Boulding asks "what is the role of the Society of Friends, this tiny body of less than two hundred thousand people, in this great process stretching from creation to doomsday?" Recognizing that the 'Quaker mutation' resulted in dramatic social changes he discusses two principal differences: first: Quakers were perfectionists, and second they were experimentalists.

"Out of these two mutations in motivation, towards perfectionism on one hand and experimentalism on the other comes a series of great practical mutations: the Meeting for Worship, the related Meeting for Business, and the whole structure and practice of the Quaker meeting as a social organization." These mutations embedded in Quakerism are the foundation of the "evolutionary potential" of the movement.

Kenneth Boulding challenges Quakers and suggests "that the Society of Friends has a great intellectual task ahead of it, in the translation of its religious and ethical experiences and insights into a conscious understanding of the way in which the kind of love which we treasure and covet can be produced, defended, and extended."

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