As a politician and a devotee of republicanism, Jefferson hoped that subjecting religious sensibilities to free inquiry would transform faith from a source of contention into a force for good, for he knew that religion in one form or another was a perpetual factor in the world.65 The wisest course, then, was not to rail against it but to encourage the application of reason to questions of faith. The more rational that men became about religion, Jefferson believed, the better lives they would lead; in turn the life of the nation would become more stable and virtuous.
