" He is very human; but his humanity is deeply ethical in character.

Yet this method of treating character is consistent with the purpose of the novel, which is quite as much ethical as literary.

They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the ethical from that which is not.

But it was rather an ethical than a religious movement; it was an attempt to remove misery from the world, and to elevate ordinary life by a reform of morals.