Under residual conditions the permanent measure stands alone. It no longer receives the support of a traditional order that once made it the visible center of collective life. The residual man does not invent a substitute. He continues to live by the same measure that once ordered the higher civilizations. The solitude of the measure is now part of its residual character.
The residual age multiplies temporary measures. Each presents itself as final until the next one replaces it. The differentiated man recognizes the succession for what it is. He does not enter the succession. The permanent measure is not one more temporary standard. It is the criterion that judges every temporary standard.
Young men feel the solitude of the permanent measure as a continuous pressure to adopt a more popular criterion. The residual path answers that pressure by requiring the man to keep the measure present even when its presence isolates him from the residual current. The isolation is the residual form of the older hierarchical distance.
Live by the permanent measure alone. Do not wait for the residual world to restore the collective forms that once confirmed it. The man who continues to judge by that measure already occupies the residual position the cycle still leaves to the higher type.