  In his Book of Religion, al-Farabi explains along these same lines that most people are not able to grasp truths through an exercise of intellect, but rather, “either due to nature or because they are occupied with other things” these people (the average folks) will “understand generally accepted or persuasive things” (BR, B 98; BR, M § 48). In this context, rhetoric becomes an important tool, helping the virtuous leader in his attempts to found a virtuous city by ably engaging average people's imaginations (and affecting them in a way that philosophical argument could never affect them), and in this way guiding them along towards right action and the happiness that comes from human flourishing. (It is a matter for debate whether the average person even has a chance at a further kind of happiness, viz. the kind of true philosophical happiness that comes from intellectual apprehension.) . In The Attainment of Happiness, al-Farabi speaks in this regard of the legislator's representing truths to “the multitude” (the average people whom he also calls “the vulgar” in contrast to “the elite”—a distinction employed by Maimonides as well), providing guidance to them through images and persuasive speech acts, all of which “take hold of their souls and dominate them so that they are unable to resolve to do anything else” (AH 79). He describes this same sort of visceral overtaking in his commentary on Plato's Laws where, speaking to the importance of a leader's capturing the hearts of the people and leading them towards virtue, al-Farabi takes note of Plato's own philosophical focus on dancing and flute-playing. As al-Farabi sees it, the art of singing is “truly very useful, especially because its working penetrates the soul; and since the law concerns itself with the soul, he [i.e.  Plato] spoke at length about this subject” (PL 94).  