The unbroken criterion continues after every collective standard that once embodied it has been dissolved. The residual man continues to measure himself and his actions by the permanent standard even though the age offers no shared measure and no confirmation of its authority. The criterion itself is unbroken. Only the public order that once made it visible has vanished.
Young men who still feel the need for a firm standard often look for residual institutions or residual authorities that will apply the criterion for them. Most of those institutions have already adjusted the standard until it no longer differs from the horizontal demands of the age. The residual path does not wait for external application. It continues to apply the permanent criterion from the interior center that still recognizes its force.
This solitary application is the residual form of the older traditional measure that once ordered both the individual and the civilization. The man who keeps the criterion present already performs the residual duty. That duty does not become less real because it is no longer collective.
Keep the unbroken criterion. Do not wait for the age to restore conditions in which higher standards are publicly enforced. The residual act is to keep the permanent measure effective in every concrete decision. That effectiveness is the continuity of the higher type under residual conditions.