Jefferson argues that civil judges cannot render opinions about the beliefs of others because of what tendency?
a. the tendency to prefer their own beliefs
b. the tendency to render lenient judgments
c. the tendency to confuse religious and civil acts
d. the tendency to want to limit civil capacities

A. Because of the tendency to prefer their own beliefs.

Thomas Jefferson often argued vehemently for the freedom of belief as a freedom all individuals should enjoy.  If judges were to make rulings about the beliefs of others, that would be a confusing of religious and civil spheres.  Jefferson drafted a bill regarding freedom of religious belief in 1777 ... and his views ultimately were enacted into law in 1786.  In his Statute of Religious Freedom, Jefferson wrote:

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry. ... To allow the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of the tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment; and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own."

evertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable.

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