What is the significance of descartes' principle of the separation of mind and matter?

The siginificance of descartes' principle of the separation of mind and matter is that This allowed scientists to view matter as dead or inertia as something that was totally detached from themselves and that could be investigated independently by reason.

Descartest view mind as something that couldn't be considered as a part of our body, but both mind and body will allways casually interract.

This thinking led to the initial term of 'soul' that was really popular during the earliest development of religion