 If grounding is, or is like, causation, what follows concerning our understanding of the nature of metaphysical explanation? That depends. One suggestion is that, if grounding is (like) causation, how we understand the nature of causation (and grounding) somehow directly translates into an account of the nature of causal (and metaphysical) explanation. Some accounts of the nature of causation seem a better fit than others for this type of “translation”. If, for instance, causation is understood along counterfactual or interventionist lines, causation and causal explanation (and, is the idea, by analogy, grounding and metaphysical explanation) seem especially closely related (see the entry on  causation: and manipulability  and the entry on  counterfactual theories of causation).  On this type of account, a causal explanation amounts to laying bare systematic patterns of counterfactual dependence. In interventionist language: