Science — more properly, scientific method — is a ritual; just like magic and religion, its “central aim,” as Susanne K. Langer writes, “is to symbolize a Presence, to aid in the formulation of a religious universe.” It is, simply and fundamentally, an attempt to express the unknown. The ability of science to control nature is just a fortunate (?) by-product of its main purpose.
Art, too, is about expression. Perhaps we are more familiar with the conscious ritualing of an artist, since so many artists seem to be performers as well as creators. The artistic impulse is a need which neither the artist nor anybody else can explain, an intuition demanding expression lest life seem (feel), well, unlived. The patriot, too, who risks all for liberty and natural rights, is another who is compelled to action, and to a powerful ritualing, by a vision of a distant ideal.
Genius is motivated by imperfections in the order of things. Visionaries and prophets have a sense, or an intuition, of something beyond the known traditions of their time. Such souls devote their lives to the expression of something ineffable.