"What would we say to the man who should argue that mirrors ought to be abolished as worthless because no one can obtain beauty by
looking into them?
We would say that it is not the function of a mirror to make people beautiful, that no one ever made such a claim for mirrors.
The function of the mirror is to provide us with a means of knowing what we look like, whether we look as we ought. And when we have discovered how we look, we can take appropriate steps to remedy our imperfections.
Even so with the law.
The law was never intended to make man holy or pure or beautiful.
Its task is not that of saving man from his sins,
but of showing him just what his condition is."
F.D.Nichol/F7
