# Nietzsche also makes promising a power of freedom

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH07.P036](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P036/#char=2433,2470): "I should ask to be kept to my bargain"

An unexpected comparison complicates the chapter’s earlier attack on Nietzsche. In *On the Genealogy of Morals* (1887), second essay §§1–2, the capacity to promise involves sustaining a will through intervening changes. The sovereign individual’s freedom includes reliability and power over himself, rather than mere release from commitments. The edition inspected is Ian Johnston’s revised English translation (2014), based on the first German edition. [Second essay, §§1–2.](https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogy2.htm)

The resemblance has limits. Nietzsche’s exceptional individual emerges beyond customary morality, whereas Chesterton asks a social order to uphold his obligations and makes Christian marriage exemplary. Nietzsche also traces the production of dependable memory through terrible punishments (§3). Neither thinker therefore equates freedom simply with the absence of restraint; they differ over the formation and authority of the binding will. This is a philosophical comparison, not evidence that Chesterton borrowed from or answered this passage. [Second essay, §§2–3.](https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogy2.htm)

## Sources

- [Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, translated by Ian Johnston](https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogy2.htm), Second Essay §§1–3; revised translation 2014
- [Ian Johnston, preliminary note to On the Genealogy of Morals](https://web.viu.ca/johnstoi/nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm), Preliminary Note: translation based on Leipzig first edition, 1887

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