We have witnessed the terrible increases in the incidence of alcoholism, the advent of drug dependency, the protests, marches, strikes and human alienation.
To conquer nature is, in effect, to remove all natural barriers and human norms and to substitute artificial, fabricated equivalents for natural processes.
Some would suggest that there has been a dramatic change in our perception of the world and ourselves within the world. Others have observed that there has been an almost complete about-face in a relatively short span of time.
Over the past several years, all of us as Canadians, and as members of the North American cultural and economic environment, have been to a greater or lesser extent party to a significant attitudinal change towards our culture.
Over the past few years, many of us have increasingly begun to question the direction and meaning of our society as it has developed over the past several centuries.
Even with, or perhaps, because of, this background, I have over the past few years sensed a very dramatic change in attitude on the part of Prince Edward Islanders towards the on-going rush for so-called modernization.
As a consequence, progress has come to mean simply more power, more profit, more productivity, more paper prosperity, all of which are convertible into standards concerned only with size or magnitude rather than quality or excellence.
I, Alexander B. Campbell, make this statement of the cause of my death to relieve the coroner of the necessity of an inquest, and also let my friends know the motive that led me to take my own life.
We, in our Province, are beginning to realize and appreciate that our slowness in keeping up with our North American neighbours may well have been a blessing in disguise.
We must carefully examine change so that we are able to discard those aspects of change which would be detrimental to our way of life, and, at the same time, take advantage of those aspects of change which will enhance and improve our quality of life.
The reason why I take my life is because I want to go to my wife and boy. My usefulness in this world is at an end. I can not be satisfied in any business and can not be without their companionship.
My friends all regarded me as a man of unsound mind because I held the view that my wife was with me in spirit always. I have lived with her spirit guiding me every day and she is with me now as I write this letter, and helps me to do as I am now doing.
