Full Idea
'Man', and every generic term, denotes not an individual substance but a quality or relation or mode or something of the kind.
Gist of Idea
Generic terms like 'man' are not substances, but qualities, relations, modes or some such thing
Source
Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a01)
Book Reference
Aristotle: 'Sophistical Refutations, On the Cosmos etc (III)', ed/tr. Forster,E.S. /Furley,D.J. [Harvard Loeb 1955], p.117
A Reaction
This is Aristotle's denial that species constitutes the essence of anything. I take 'man' to be a categorisation of individuals, and is ontologically nothing at all in its own right.