Serres

"A microscopic parasite can be introduced into an equilibrated pathological environment, or a good sized parasite into an economically stable system, or a noisy parasite into a dialogical message ;
in any case a (hi)story will follow.
For a long time it was believed that these (hi)stories were different.
The questions (..) are more or less questions of origin.
All of them were resolved by the parasite.
The solution was an easy one, since, without a parasite-that is to say, without asymmetry or disequilibrium-there is no irreversible, no chain emerges, and time is unknown."

Michel Serres, The Parasite (1980) 

Fable of the city rat and the country rat, 
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695),