One great function of the arts is to keep ideals alive in a culture that does not yet realize them.
You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition's arms.
In the most general terms, the Enlightenment goes back to Plato's belief that truth and beauty and goodness are connected; that truth and beauty, disseminated widely, will sooner or later lead to goodness. (While we're making at effort at truth and goodness, beauty reminds us what we're hold out for.)
As long as your ideas of what's possible are limited by what's actual, no other idea has a chance.
