The interior criterion continues after every external criterion of higher rank has been abandoned. The residual man continues to judge according to the permanent standard even though the age offers no confirming authority and no shared measure. The criterion itself remains intact. Only the collective structures that once enforced it have disappeared.
Young men who still seek a reliable standard often look for residual authorities or residual communities that will supply the criterion from outside. Most of those authorities 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 confirmation. 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 criterion 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.
Apply the interior 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.