The residual man as living criterion is the capacity to embody the permanent measure after every collective form of higher order has been dissolved. The residual man continues as that criterion even though the age offers no confirming environment for it. The criterion itself remains intact. Only the collective forms that once made it public have disappeared.
Young men who still sense the force of a higher measure often look for residual institutions or residual authorities that will keep the criterion alive for them. Most of those institutions have already been emptied by the horizontal forces that dominate the age. The residual path does not wait for external embodiment. It continues as the permanent measure from the interior center that still holds it.
This solitary embodiment is the residual form of the older traditional presence of the higher type. The man who continues as the living criterion already performs the residual act. That act does not require collective recognition to remain real.
Become the criterion. Do not wait for the age to restore conditions in which the higher measure is publicly embodied. 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.