1873 British use of 'which', as a relative pronoun?

Question

[25% down the page] In any case, is vengeance necessarily a bad thing?

The Victorian legal philosopher James Fitzjames Stephens [in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity] thought vengeance was an acceptable justification for punishment. Punishment, he thought, should be inflicted:

1. for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred − call it revenge, resentment, or what you will − which the contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites[,] in healthily constituted minds.

Would someone please explain which? What's this phenomenon called?

How does the above differ from the only way in which I could interpret this quote, by removing which:

2. for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred − call it revenge, resentment, or what you will. The contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites in healthily constituted minds.

But 2 sounds wrong, because excite is a transitive verb (so 'excite in' is unreasoning)?

Update: I inserted a comma after 'excite', if this shos that 'which ... excites' is the relative clause?

Answer 1

for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred − call it revenge, resentment, or what you will − which the contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites in healthily constituted minds.

To make the sentence more understandable, I'd rather remove the parenthetic construction between the dashes:

for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred which the contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites in healthily constituted minds.

Hence

The contemplation of such conduct excites the feeling of hatred in healthy minds. So, for the sake of ratifying this feeling, let us bestow punishment upon convicts.