Homo Sapiens has always been wondering about the essence and purpose of his short, earthly life. It could be argued, in fact, that posing such deep and self-reflexive questions was what made him Homo Sapiens in the first place: the arise of the first self-consciousness in the animal kingdom detached its owner by the rest of the species. One of the most discussed dilemma was: "what am I?"
Man soon realized that within him was a profound contradiction: he seemed to be divided into two qualitatively different aspects, that is, a body and a mind: one material, the other incorporeal; one external, the other internal. Furthermore, "mind" was an extremely general term for his whole inner life. Thus, another division was made in the classification of his nature: the word "mind" came to define the rational side of his mental life, whereas the term "soul" represented its spiritual, emotional and religious tendencies.
It is now clear, from an evolutionary point of view, that the body, that is, physics and chemistry, was temporally the first aspect of all life on Earth. Nonetheless, mind and soul played very important roles in the evolution of human knowledge and society, alternating with the former as the leading aspects of the ideologies of given periods.
The Greco-Roman world is often regarded as an odd peak of refinement in human knowledge, in which the pursuit of an aurea mediocritas between body, mind and soul health led to astonishing results; the Middle Ages condemned the corporeal side of man as a sin; Renaissance celebrated art and secular reason; Enlightenment pushed this to the extreme; Romanticism gave attention to the world of human emotions.
It appears clear that trying to eliminate a part of human nature from society causes discontent and instability. Modern era should learn from history, and I think that, to a degree, it did. Mind, body and soul should be equally regarded as essential aspects of a fully lived human life. Society and man should learn to balance them in a way that they can cooperate, when necessary, but also remain, to an extent, independent.