The permanent demand continues after every external demand of higher order has been silenced. The residual man continues to answer the permanent demand even though the age offers no confirming voice and no shared obligation. The demand itself remains intact. Only the collective structures that once articulated it have disappeared.
Young men who still sense a higher claim often look for residual authorities or residual communities that will voice the demand for them. Most of those authorities have already softened the claim until it no longer differs from the horizontal demands of the age. The residual path does not wait for external articulation. It continues to answer the permanent demand from the interior center that still hears its force.
This solitary answering is the residual form of the older traditional demand that once ordered both the individual and the civilization. The man who keeps the demand present already performs the residual act. That act does not become less real because it is no longer collective.
Answer the permanent demand. Do not wait for the age to restore conditions in which higher claims are publicly voiced. 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.