Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him till he becomes invisible.

Addison makes this remark in the context of early‑eighteenth‑century periodical criticism of public argument—especially the habits of polemical writers and coffeehouse debaters who, when pressed, resort to obscurity, digression, or a flood of words rather than a clear answer. In his essays for The Spectator, Addison repeatedly targets “false wit,” sophistry, and contentious disputation as social vices that damage polite conversation and rational inquiry. The cuttlefish image draws on a familiar natural-historical anecdote: when threatened, the animal releases ink to cloud the water, a vivid metaphor for a disputant who muddies the issue to avoid being pinned down.

Addison likens certain debaters to a cuttlefish that releases ink when threatened: instead of meeting an argument directly, they cloud the issue. The image targets a familiar rhetorical vice—obscurantism—where a disputant, unable to “extricate” himself from a weak position, multiplies distractions, ambiguities, or irrelevant points so that the audience loses sight of what matters. The comparison implies both cowardice and calculation: the goal is not truth but escape, achieved by making the intellectual “water” so dark that responsibility and refutation become difficult. The remark fits Addison’s broader moral-journalistic project of promoting clarity, reasonableness, and civil discourse in public debate.