The permanent standard continues after every external application of higher criteria has been abandoned. The residual man continues to measure himself by what remains unbroken even though the age offers no shared scale and no recognition of its authority. The standard itself is intact. Only the public order that once made it visible has vanished.
Young men who still seek a firm measure often look for residual authorities or residual communities that will apply the standard for them. Most of those authorities have already adjusted the measure 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 standard 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 standard present already performs the residual duty. That duty does not become less real because it is no longer collective.
Keep the permanent standard alone. Do not wait for the age to restore conditions in which higher criteria are publicly enforced. The residual act is to keep the unbroken measure effective in every concrete decision. That effectiveness is the continuity of the higher type under residual conditions.