A striking example of the coincidence of opposites has been created by Robert Bolt in his play, A Man For All Seasons. The crude stagehand dressed in satanic black and called the "Common Man" is an exact shadow of Thomas More, the saint-protagonist. More and the Common Man, who at first sight seem so irreconcilable, are two sides of an equation….

Bolt, who is not a Christian in "the meaningful sense of the world" …, makes abundantly clear in the Preface that More's most praiseworthy virtue is his tenacious hold on his self. (p. 182)

Bolt has a good reason for saying that the Common Man is "harder to find than a unicorn."… This statement cannot be put aside, for it has two meanings which, taken together, locate the playwright's central idea. One meaning is that the Common Man is no easier to find than More the saint. Here we...