EXCOGITATION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Excogitation

... you attempt, from time to time, an original sermon; and in the labour of composition, do not burthen your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first ...

— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill